Well, it sounds to me like you are expanding the “meaningful predictive value” criterion to the point where it eclipses your other criteria. Here’s what you said earlier:
In any event, you might ask yourself why you’re having so much trouble coming up with a precise basis for the claim that race does not exist.
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You betcha.
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Fine, although I would remind you that as I stated earlier, while I think that “race exists” is true in a technical sense, there’s not much to be gained by looking at it from the viewpoint of existence/nonexistence.
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Well, that leads us to the question of what it means to “mirror/correspond/adhere to what is known about reality.”
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No objection at all.
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Although the two are similar in many ways, I think that entities, such as the tooth fairy or the atom, are qualitatively different from classification schemes, such as the zodiac.
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Not quite (actually a little more), but it’s definitely worth discussing.
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Fine, and I think it would be silly to claim that the periodic table doesn’t exist even though it clearly oversimplifies reality.
And if somebody claimed that the periodic table doesn’t exist as a way of suggesting or implying that all elements are the same, well . . .
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Ok, I’ll miss your civility.
By the way, I’m assuming you agree with my claim that it is an abuse for someone to use “race doesn’t exist” to suggest or imply that the “significant differences” I mentioned earlier cannot exist.
It would be helpful if disagreements on the matter had some grounding in science and data.
Boas
Right, Izzy my boy. Boas is not relevant for the observations on genetics. He’s of some historical interest in regards to the reaction against scientific racism, but it’s fairly historical. At least in terms of this subject matter. I frankly was unaware that Boas had argued skull shape had changed in a mere generation, strikes me as silly and something never of much relevance.
I write rapidly Izzy, busy man I am. And I often forget what knowledge is general and what is specific.
The points were to the relevance of skeletal inquiry and the peculiarities in the NYT article, much of which struck me as quite peculiarly misreading/characterizing of several of the issues rasied. E.g. my recollection of K-man (Kennewick man) issues diverge greatly from the article’s and I frankly believe I have a far better grasp than this NYT writer (The fellow has failed to impress me to date) although I may have missed some of the literature. Overall, I do not seem much if any relevance to the Boas, other than the degree to which his data informed physical anthropological thought on skeletal formation.
But I would hope that the 70 odd years of subsequent medical literature grounded in biological sciences are more influential.
My comments on Chamla were simply illustrative of my sense the NYT article writer did not have a good grasp of the issues: the Chamla articles were in regards to id’ing ‘race’ of ancient skeletons in Africa, ranging from North Africa to sub-Saharan, with particular regard to regional differences. 1960s era work, rather free of Anglo-Saxon PC concerns if you’re concerned about that. She found a range with about 1/3 of any given pop. having the other ‘race’ (as I recall there were three categories, Cauc.; Saharan; Negroid) skeletal characteristics.
So, with a purely African sample we have no small degree of variation within skeletal forms. And of course, as we know from the data, the physical phenotype isn’t telling us very much about the overall genetic package.
As I said, I fail to see that any of this is of much relevance.
I’m not sure what your point is here. It sounds like you are summarizing the usual criticisms of race and then conceding it might have some limited use.
Ok, and it looks like those limited resources are being targeted on the basis of race. So I disagree with your claim that “there is no selection based on ‘race.’” The targetting is a form of selection.
I’m not sure if you are for some reason under the impression that my comments were addressed to you - actually they were addressed to tomndebb, and were in reference to a discussion that I’ve had with him. In the unlikely event that you will chose to familiarize yourself with this, you just might notice that we were not primarily disputing any science or data; rather, we were discussing the validity and meaningfulness of classification schemes.
Here’s something new for you. Sometimes, a discussion of a scientific-related matter does not involve a dispute of actual science and data. Sometimes it involves inferences that can be brought from that science, and the implications of such. And in such cases - and pay close attention now - it is not helpful to toss out host of irrelevant quotes from “primary literature”, accompanied by vague and half-formed commentary in scientific jargon. No, in such cases, what is required is that you pay close attention to the actual issues being discussed, and consider them carefully, and try to make your case in a logical and rational manner. Try it sometime.
So let’s see. On the one hand we have a couple of physical anthropologists, professors at respectable universities and publishing in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Also the curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. And the science writer for the NY Times. On the other side we have the assertion of some guy with an interest in genetics. Who to believe? This is hard.
I’m on shakier ground here, but I don’t know if you can compare patterns in ancient skeletons from one continent to another. Particularly if Africa is thought to be the origin of many groups that later emigrated, one would expect to find a greater diversity among ancient skeletons than you would find elsewhere. Or maybe not. In any event, absent a more comprehensive treatment of the Kennewick issue, I don’t think you’ve made your case.
Sure is. It is a sociological approach to find a group of people that might meet the biological definitions of ethnicity or population. It is certainly not an attempt to deal with some biological race. I see no biological race. Who is in it? How does one identify it? How do we identify who is or is not in it?
I have never claimed that race had no cultural or sociological meaning and have generally noted those uses in most of these discussions. I only object to pretending that there are three or five or sixty groups of people who can be clearly identified biologically as races.
Our particular byplay began with this exchange between you and Sparc:
To which you cryptically replied with a link to a group that seeks to increase the donor pool among several cultural and ethnic groups, but which does not make selections by “race.” The categories of the NMDP are clearly cultural–they do not even map onto the classic race schema. (There simply is no “Hispanic race” in any biological categorization.) They identify self-selected ethnic groups in the United States. The use of race in that context is cultural, not biological.
Izzy, it is a public board, addressed to me or not, I commented. Now here’s something new to you perhaps, the science includes the classification schemes. They don’t exist in hermetically sealed boxes, as others have demonstrated above (although at some point one can wander off into philosophical musings, but that’s philosophy) – so my ref to the science includes informed engagement with currently supported means of organizing the data and talking about it. The actual issues discussed. As I haven’t seen you displaying an enormous grasp of the science or the data, but only making half-informed commentary and speculation about the research and classification schemes, I take it to mean that you can’t trouble yourself to do so. The citations I have provided all have gone to (a) the applicability of given means of organizing the data, (b) illustrating how, through the primary literature, the data does not fit a superceded classification scheme. Irrelevant perhaps if one cares not to be engaged in it in an informed manner.
As you wish, Izzy, as you wish. Perhaps I will have to pull up the actual PNAS article so that we can compare what it actually says to the NYT article. My point was, badly expressed perhaps, that it did not strike me that the NYT writer was adequately conveying the discussion. Insofar as the same fellow, in my opinion, has not done an adequate job on other issues, I don’t particularly see this as questioning the professors, simply a matter of my having a problem with NYT presentation of the same. But as I said
Either way, it’s not very relevant to the issue of race ‘existing’ as a useful biological category (the relevant observations on this are utterly independent of this odd argument Boas apparently advanced in re short term shift in morphology. Where it seems to be relevant is to the debate btw physical anthropologists and the cultural school, as developed by Mead et al. I frankly have never paid much attention to them, having only read literature in the hard sci part of anthropology.)
Now, just for the novelty value, let me provide the actual citation and the abstract. I’ll get around to reading the article later:
Anthropology
Corey S. Sparks * and Richard L. Jantz “A reassessment of human cranial plasticity: Boas revisited” PNAS 8 Oct. 02 10.1073/pnas.222389599 (pre-publication version)
So, addressing a point on cranial plasticity in a short term basis. Pretty unsurprising to me, given the genetics. As I don’t recall seeing anything about inter-generational cranial plasticity in anything I’ve read or argued, I don’t see much relevance to our debate, per se, although I have to read it over to get a better sense.
All well and fine.
Now, on review I noted that the NYT article quotes an 80% continental origin ID. The Chamla articles had a 70% “race” – really ethnicity here as the Chamla scheme, as memory serves w/o digging about to find the old articles, had the division described above, with Saharan being an ‘intermediate’ type between the North African ‘caucasiods’ and the sub-Saharan ‘negroid’ types. Probably we’re within the SE on this, so it strikes me they’re not saying very different things, other than we see within continental groups a degree of variation even on the level of phenotypes, which in the end gets us right back to the overall observation on genetics and lack of coherence of the classical race concept.
BTW in re K-Man, I had understood the debate as follows, based on my readings in the literature:
By all means, feel free. Nonetheless, it would be helpful if you were familiar with the discussion you were commenting on. I was, and am, unsure if this is the case.
Elementary my dear Watson, of course it does. Science has to include classification schemes - I can’t imagine how it could do without it. However, the fact that scientists have chosen to classify a subject in a manner that is most meaningful and useful for the study of science does not preclude others from making their own classifications in manners that are useful to them. Nonetheless, even classification schemes that are not intended for an understanding of scientific principles must - to the extent that they are to reflect reality - conform to what science can tell us about this reality. So some knowledge of the underlying science can be informative, even if it is not to be classified along the same lines. But - of significance here - it is possible in such cases to discuss the issue with out constant reference to scientific source data, if these are not the crux of the disagreement. Such was the case in the matter at hand.
I have to plead guilty here. I am not especially informed about these matters - as I’ve mentioned previously, most of what I know about the underlying science has been learned as a result of these threads. And you are correct that I can’t trouble myself to do so. To the extent that others in these debates have introduced scientific matters and demonstrated real implications for the matters being discussed, I’ve troubled myself to focus on their positions. But when matters have been introduced that doesn’t have any apparent connection to anything being discussed, or which clearly have no connection (save for an attack on strawman positions not being advocated) I’ve skimmed them.
As in your case. As you say “The citations I have provided all have gone to (a) the applicability of given means of organizing the data, (b) illustrating how, through the primary literature, the data does not fit a superceded classification scheme”. Now frankly, I have almost no interest in classification schemes. Despite your claims to the contrary, I’ve concentrated primarily on the truth or falsehood of given statements, rather than on their meaningfulness. And in fact, I’ve have expended considerable energy in these debates trying to have people accept this simple-seeming concept: that the truth or falsehood of a given statement can be considered independently of it’s meaningfulness in the context of a given classification scheme. (My exchange with tom described above grew out of such a discussion in the genital thread).
As far as classification schemes go, I’m more than happy to let scientists classify things any way that they find useful. And I’m more than happy to have people here point this out, as long as they are clear that this is all they are pointing out.
Don’t know about that. The abstract you’ve printed out says pretty clearly that the Boas study has been used for the past 90 years. Also the direct quote from the museum guy seems to also indicate that it is pretty relevant today as well. Which you’ve contradicted.
Don’t know about this either. I would tend to think that 80% of the guys on a continent having a common and distinct shape of skull might be something of an indication of some type of genetic conformity within the continent.
Sorry about that - I’ll try again. If Africa is indeed the origin of many peoples that later emigrated elsewhere, you would expect to find all types there more than you would elsewhere. IOW, whereas ancient skulls found in America would be expected to resemble those of America Aborigines, because these people are likely ancestors of American Aborigines, skulls in Africa might resemble those of contemporary Africans who descended from them, but might also resemble those of contemporary Europeans who may have also descended from them.
Regarding the “K-man” issue, unless you’re sure that there was no discussion of plasticity - and you now seem to be backing away a bit - I don’t think you can dismiss the article. The writer was not claiming to be presenting a summary of the Kennewick issue - only to discuss one ramification of the new theory.
Well, again, I was commenting on one matter, relevance to the issue of the genetics and general coherence/utility/ effective existence of race. The abstract goes to the Boas data / conclusions being used in area I was not even aware of, and frankly of no relevance to this issue. They are two different matters.
You can assume otherwise on some unknown basis if you like.
Well, aside from the fact that our genetics data already refute this naive misunderstanding of the statement, you didn’t understand the statement. Unsurprising but let me explain.
The factoid was allowed 80% accuracy in id’ing origin, not that 80% of the skulls were the same. Would it be too much to ask you to get the basic facts right? Indeed the Chamla articles clearly show diversity in skeletal remains. Now in re the article, you will note that from the abstract it is an examination of Europeans only, so we are looking at an examination of variability within continent here, evidently.
Now, returning to the issue of genetic conformity, again the genetic data on this has already been cited, so your continued lack of understanding is hard to understand. Phenotype is not diagnostic for overall genetic make up, really very clearly explicated and documented in the past.
I don’t believe I am backing away, I noted in my original comment that I might have missed portions of the discussion. It strikes me as a tangential issue, and I wished to explicate why such a discussion might have escaped my notice.
Sorry, that was not clear from your earlier post, in which you seemed to be saying that besides for the issue of relevance in terms of subject matter, the fact of Boas dating from the 30’s itself made this less significant.
Actually, it is you who have failed to understand the issue. Try to pay attention now.
The 80% figure is taken from the article, and has nothing to do with the abstract. Reread the following as many times as necessary:
In sum, the 80% figure refers to determination of continent of origin - the significance of Boas’ study is that to the extent that environment affects skull measurements, the measured differences between continents can be assumed to reflect environmental differences. To the extent that environment does not influence skull shape, the observed differences cannot be attributed to environmental factors. Try to understand this.
I don’t see any difference between 80% accuracy in id’ing origin, and 80% of the skulls being similar. Unless you are claiming that the 20% inaccurate calls are due to some sort of error rate by diagnosticians, which I don’t buy. I assume that 80% will fall under the classic shape for that continent and 20% will diverge. (Which, BTW is what you seemed to be assuming as well in your previous post. Whatever)
Could you EXPLAIN this more fully? (Also explain who is talking about overall genetic makeup - I am referring to similarity). Are you asserting that different genes will cause cause different people to have the same shaped skull?
[[JillGat? I didn’t know he/she was a common contributer to all the many race threads.]]
Hoo boy, you haven’t been around on the SDMB that long, then. I used to get real hot under the collar, discussing/debating this issue (which is really a variety of issues). As the European-ancestored mother of an African-ancestored son, it’s been a relevant topic for me. As an epidemiologist in the US, I defended the practice of classifying people according to race in the collection of health data because there continue to be big disparities in disease incidence/prevalence by commonly described racial groups and we need to track this to find out why, develop appropriate prevention/treatment strategies and interventions, etc. etc. I am still an epidemiologist. But now I live in a country where, although there is lively discussion of racial issues, most of the people are so “colourful” that it’s even much harder to put people into groups. Man, are they good lookin’, though.
Jill
What I meant to add there was that in most Caribbean countries, in HIV/AIDS data at least, we don’t collect data on people by race. Sorry if I’m not being clear… must be all that rum.
OWD, the purpose of The Straight Dope is to fight ignorance, not perpetuate it or invent new examples of it. Your statement is not merely wrong, it is laughably wrong:
No scientist believes that humanity can be divided into sub-species.
Wishing that something might be true to give oneself some sense of comfort about one’s prejudices does not make that belief true.
Well, yes, as I was not aware that there were still citations to this in re an issue that frankly I had not seen discussed. I tend to read the genetics literature, you see.
You’re right, I fucked up. My fault trying to multitask.
In re the Boas materials, looking more closely, the point of his study was to argue that in a near term time frame that environmental influences would seriously muck up measurements. Of course skull differences will partly reflect enviornmental differences, in a longer evolutioniary POV.
Well, no. We have no clear explanation from the comment cited. There is the claim of 80% accuracy in id’ing skulls within a certain context, it does not logically follow (and indeed on the African end, on a continental basis is empericaly false) that 80% of the skulls are the same/similar. The statement indicates with proper measurements. We don’t have a means on knowing, so until we – which I guess in the end means me-- dig up the literature, there’s no way to know.
Well, I have some homework then once I get back to home base.
Well… duh. Different genes, no. Alleles, evidently. Need I once more point you to the observation that the common Negroid phenotype does not support closer genetic relationship, e.g. in re Asian negroids skeletally “Negroid” to the point that pre-genetic analysis, they were classified with African populations.
The genetic data has been cited on this ad nauseum - not my problem is you can’t grasp it. Or won’t.
Oh this is great criticism coming from two people who have yet to be able to advance clear, identifiable hypotheses or even reconcile their “feelings” with current theory.
OK, no capital crime here. But then you might want to be a bit more cautious when firing off your opinions on matters of this sort, especially under the conditions you describe.
Well, I don’t know how you would assign those 80% of skulls to a continent unless there is a defined shape for that continent that they conform to. But I’m willing to hear otherwise, should you (or someone) find this to be the case.
Essentially what I was guessing, though I was evidently using the term genes instead of alleles. (If there’s any fundamental difference FOR PURPOSES OF THIS DISCUSSION, tell me). So to paraphrase - what you are saying is that a common or similar skull shape does not necessarily indicate a closer genetic similarity - Group A might be more similar from a genetic standpoint to Group B but have their skeletons (and presumably, skulls) more closely resemble those of Group C. This being presumably due to the long term environmental effects that you mention earlier.
Still, it would seem to me that as one accepts that long term environmental effects had caused similarities for a greater number of attributes that have no readily apparent environmental cause, one must also be increasingly open to the idea that shared environment might have caused other attributes to develop along similar lines among groups sharing the same environment.
One of the “no-race” arguments has been that skin color and the like are somewhat unique in that they take only a few genes (or alleles - I don’t know the difference) to trigger a change, and further that they are uniquely subject to environmental influence. An increasing number of characteristics that are found to be shared by continent would tend to undermine that argument.
On further reflection, I am no longer as sure of this. Because it is theoretically possible that there are numerous different “asian” skull shapes, and numerous different “african” skull types and so on. So that the forensic anthropologist can determine continent of origin by taking 90 measurements even without any sort of continent-wide common skull shape at all.
If this should turn out to be the case, my entire previous post would cease to have any relevance to this matter. Except for the part about collounsbury being a bit more cautious - that would be a good idea in any event.
