Does not exclude the possibility a priori, no. But there is still no solid evidence that one can reliably determine even such presumptive fuzzy boundaries. And ultimately if the boundaries get so fuzzy, what utility are they?
Part of the same problem. Dogs were bred from wolves ( this now appears to be incontrovertible ). Wolves and dogs can interbreed readily ( so can dogs and coyotes ). Mostly they don’t, because of human-imposed spatial separation, but they will if they can. Genetically they are very, very similar. So these days the standard tack has been to label them as a single species, often listed as separate subspecies. But the artificiality of the dog situation clouds the issue as there is no longer a lot of natural contact between the two. Gene flow is not continuous, so on some philosophical grounds there is grounds for separating them into two separate species as wolves and coyotes generally are ( they can interbreed as well, but under natural circumstances behavioral isolating mechanisms tend to separate them - coyotes and wolves have about a 4-7.5% difference in mtDNA sequences vs. .2%-2% difference between wolves and domestic dogs - but some authors would synonomize the lot ). But if you removed humans from the picture, they certainly would begin interbreeding where both were present. So the artificiality of the situation makes it a problematic model.
shrug There are always exceptions to everything. We just have to strive to limit them by preparing more robust models.
Dunno, off the top of my head. With large populations measuured from around the world, I’d lean towards “basically the same”. Not that I’d put money on that. The thing is that such a fuzzy measurement doesn’t have much predictive value does it? Especially not knowing how large ( quite large, I’d guess ) the number of outliers would be from this average. Again, the utility of those results would be minimal, if not non-existant, so what would be the point from a practical standpoint?
This does not bother me at all :). Whatever philosophical weakness there may be in proposing that sort of argument, in this case I believe the facts bear me out.
Has it ever been quantified in his fashion? I have no idea, but I’m guessing not. I’m afraid I can’t think of a way to convince you of what I consider a fact, short of citing thousands of individual examples, which might put a strain on both my fingers and the server. It seems self-evident to me from studying Natural History for decades. How to convincingly communicate that to someone who is sceptical and has not, is a bit of a stumper for me. I’ll think on it though.
In the meantime I might suggest as an exercise trying to think of an animal, any animal that has colonized the globe as widely and as effectively as we have. Even our most common pests are not as ubiquitous and adaptable as us ( and they dispersed through our agency, not their own ). Also try to think of some animal that breeds as readily as us and over a comparable span of years.
From a biological standpoint, rather than a cultural one? Yes, probably. Is this a problem?
Actually I’m down with the idea of relatively isolated ( and hence presumable small ) human populations being readily distinguished genetically from all other populations. No one has come up with a definitive example yet, that I know of, but the possibility certainly exists. I just would consider such an example relatively impermanent in evolutionary time and not teribly significant in the wider scheme of things. And I think most human populations, especially in these modern days, have nowhere near that level of discreteness.
[quoteI’ll certainly agree that the traditional races are a somewhat fuzzy concept. (perhaps not very, very fuzzy!!)[/QUOTE]
Eh, I think for the nonce I’ll hold out for very, very fuzzy ;).
Just out of curiosity, how are you defining “biological reality”? Do you think it is different than the way Edwino might be? I have an odd feeling the two of you ( and perhaps me ) are talking past each other just a little bit.
Just for myself I find it an awkward phrase. “Taxonomic reality” might work a little better IMO.
And yes, I realize you didn’t coin it, but you must have some opinion regardless.
The “Hard and Fast” thread species discussion and this thread are growing closer together. I think this thread is closer to that tack: I will put this brief response before bed here. This response doesn’t answer anything, I think it puts some more chips on the table, some more items for discussion.
The difference between dog breeds, between races, and between species is that of continuum. As others have pointed out, isolation leads to eventual speciation by genomic reorganization or genital shape change or perhaps other methods. In humans, we don’t see this: gene flow is still possible between groups. Groups in which we have seen restricted gene flow (but not nearly enough time to speciate) are called populations.
In dog breeds, in human populations, in inbred mouse strains, we see different allelic distributions than we over the species as a whole. But there are individuals who define a population: we have C57 and Black6 inbred mouse strains but we have all combinations of C57/Black6 progeny which define the continuum. Simple example. Just like we have all kinds of people on this planet which show intermediate “racial” traits (note that I am not putting races in the same categories as dog breeds or inbred mouse strains, as I have stated above.) There are a continuum of dogs from Great Dane to chihuahua to wolf to coyote. This is patently different than taxonomic categorizations.
We can draw a line around species because of this. There is no half-man half-chicken which defines an intermediate between man and chicken. There is no series of animals on the planet which define a continuum between cats and dogs. A man can’t reproduce with animal A which can reproduce with animal B which can reproduce with animal C which can reproduce etc. etc. where animal Z is a blue whale. Species are quantifiable by looking at reproduction. Fertility defines the border, and that is where I have set the basic line. That is all I’m trying to say.
Races are defined morphologically, by “set A” as discussed above. All traits not in “set A” have no correlation with “set A” traits due to large populations and constant gene flow between those sharing “set A” and those without. Beyond “set A,” there are no uniting factors. Since most of the genome is not in “set A,” the genetic definition of race is very very fuzzy – just because people share “set A” means nothing about the rest of their genome.
Dog breeds are also defined morphologically, again by a “set A.” They differ from races in that they have been extensively inbred. This has limited allelic distributions genome-wide to a certain degree. Beyond “set A,” the border of a dog breed becomes fuzzy. But because of inbreeding, there are certain things which are very common in some dog breeds: hip dysplasia, narcolepsy, etc. These are not part of the selected “set A” but due to interbreeding reducing the allelic variation genome wide, deleterious recessive mutations homozygose with high frequency.
Inbred mouse strains are not defined morphologically anymore. They are the result of single sibling matings for hundreds of generations. This nearly eliminates allelic variation throughout the genome and makes each animal nearly genetically identical. Every C57 mouse looks and behaves nearly the same, because they share 99% of the genome.
Do these three steps along a path illustrate a point to anyone except me?
Honestly, I don’t the second sentence - “no solid evidence that one can reliably determine even such presumptive fuzzy boundaries.”
And I don’t see how it contradicts the first sentence.
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Well, there are arguably certain uses for “race,” such as in medicine. Same thing for the concept of ethnic groups.
But in any event, even if the concept of race were totally useless for any kind of science, you could still look at the world and notice the black dominance in short-distance running, and wonder, academically, what causes the disparity.
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Ok, so are you saying that the distinction between dogs and wolves exists as biological reality, notwithstanding the fact that they are interfertile?
And since you raised the point, what about wolves and coyotes?
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Well, if a theory has enough exceptions, it starts to get kinda shaky. In fairness, edwino’s reasoning is not yet riddled with exceptions. However, he has, apparently, rejected the concepts of human populations, e.g. ethnic groups, as existing as biological reality. Also, he has, apparently, rejected all sub-species/populations/whatever, e.g. Western Cormorant versus Eastern Cormorant as existing as biological reality. And I’m not done yet
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I think that you’re a little confused about the word “predictive.”
If alleles in Set “A” (defining characteristics) have little or no predictive value regarding alleles outside Set “A,” then the question is very easy to answer. You can safely predict that the average genetic distances will be about the same.
Since you are having difficulty answering the question, I assume that there is some doubt in your mind as to whether this indeed would be the result.
Based on his earlier statements, I would guess that there is no doubt in edwino’s mind. He is confident that the average genetic distance between pairs of caucasians is about the same as the average genetic distance between pairs consisting of one caucasiona and one black. Or is he? Whaddya think edwino?
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If there were a significant difference it would show that the concept of race is not totally meaningless, genetically.
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Please do. I’m honestly very curious.
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I don’t see how wide colonization, standing alone, implies a lack of reproductive isolation. Perhaps there has been a lot of human mixing, more so than other creatures. However, I would like to see this quantified. Also, my understanding is that until not so long ago, most humans lived, bred, and died within a short distance of their birthplace. (feel free to correct me!!). In any event, there’s a big gap, IMO, between very fuzzy and meaningless.
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As I recall, some of the “no race” folks are willing to accept the validity of ethnic groups.
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Honestly, I’m not sure what the phrase means. I keep using it to keep my questions and comments about the statements of others as simple as possible.
I’d be happy to hear a definition from edwino however.
I think that technically, you are incorrect. There do exist chains of creatures where the first group is interfertile with the second; the second with the third, and so on; but the first group is not interfertile with the last.
In fact, there is such a chain connecting humans and blue whales, IMHO. Of course, most or all of the intermediate creatures are long extinct.
But in any event, it sounds like you are now saying that even if somebody demonstrated a very strong corellation between defining and non-defining alleles for the various races, you would nonetheless find that human races do not exist as a biological reality, because we are all interfertile. Am I right?
Yeah, it is a little clumsy. My point was that I don’t rule out the possibility of “average group genetic differences”. I just haven’t seen solid evidence that they exist. Even if they did exist, I wouldn’t necessarily consider that definitive proof of “races” as the term has classically been used. More on that in a second.
Well, “race” in a sociological/cultural sense is already useful in medicine :). But I think all available evidence points towards the fact that if “race” exists in the very loose sense you seem to be positing, its use in medicine would be very limited, because the category of “race” would be too broad and internally diverse to make high-value predictions based on it.
Well, we do that now and many people have come up with hypotheses. Including the possibility that it might be the result of some localized genetic factor. The fact that race in the classical sense seems to be a chimera, doesn’t entirely preclude such a possibility. It just makes it a heck of a lot less likely, knowing what we do about the genetics of most modern human populations. But so far not a single person has been able to produce solid evidence that such a genetic factor exists. But I devoutly do not want to get into this discussion again ( I would probably refuse to do so ), as at this point that topic makes my eyes glaze over. Frankly I’m still kicking myself over getting drawn into this race discussion again in the first place :).
I’m saying that I, personally, am unable to quantify the relationship between the two in a fashion satisfactory to myself :).
What about them ;)? Like a number of organisms( seagulls in the genus Larus are a far worse taxonomic nightmare ), but hardly all, they are also just a little difficult to quantify. Morphologically, they are distinct. Behaviorally, they are fairly distinct. Genetically, they are semi-distinct ( oddly so, as you’ll see ).
Wolves and coyotes will hybridize. This appears to be mostly unidirectional, with male wolves breeding with female coyotes and with the resultant hybrids mostly being raised as wolves ( wolf populations in zones of hybridization will show coyote genotypes, but adjoining coyote populations show very little evidence of wolf genotypes ). This is a result of behavioral isolating mechanisms - Male coyotes don’t normally have a chance in hell in getting close to a female wolf in estrus, shielded as she would be some sort of pack structure. Whereas male wolves can gain access to lone female coyotes in estrus ( I have no cite, but my guess is this would not be Alpha males, but rather lower-ranking males “sowing their wild oats” ). Now wolves and coyotes appear to have split two million years ago in North America. Hybrids were probably fairly rare until recently, when human impact began to favor the rapid spread of coyotes at the expense of wolves, and are still not enormously common ( leaving aside the controversy over the Red Wolf for the moment ). Given that genetic, morphological, and behavioral fidelity seems to have been retained over that period of time and that gene flow is relatively low, I am confident in referring to them as different ( if slightly fuzzy and interfertile ) species. Weasely? Not much IMO, but I’ll get to that point.
Recasting your question - Is there a possibility that if you measured the entire universe of “black” people and the entire universe of “white” people, could you find, on average, a variation, no matter how small, in genetic differences that mapped to those two large groups? I think it is possible yes, but I’m not positive it is the case. However…
If such a difference could be found, would that be evidence for the existence of race, as it is classically construed? Well, no, it would not. Because an average difference could be tiny and the genetic variation within those groups could be huge, which would make, once again, the utility of using race as a formal category pretty worthless. And in fact, modern genetic testing does indeed seem to bear this out. You may find an average difference in the overall frequency of alleles ( conceivably, it has not been proven this is the case, other than, I suppose, the presumed case of those coding for skin color et al ), but you are not likely find a difference in the fixity of alleles. Averages don’t necessarily imply a significant difference or similarity ( two areas might get the same average rainfall in a year, but if one gets all that rain in four weeks vs. four months in the other, their overall climate will be very different ).
Not sure I agree - As above I think it could ( probably would ) continue to be functionally meaningless.
Not lack - Just not as much as most any other terrestrial organism I can think of ( some aquatic critters like Atlantic Eels might beat us in that category ).
Again, I’m not sure how to do this, other than through anecdotal overkill. I apologize for the failure.
Oh, quite true. But the generational scale is pretty much a snap of the fingers evolutionarily speaking. Humans colonized the entire world in a matter of some ( a few tens, perhaps ) thousands of years. That is blindingly fast. At any rate, I would agree that distinct human populations ( of whatever level ) were far more likely in the past than now and will continue to disappear as we move more and more towards a situation of global panmixia. We’re busily fucking the genetic distinctness right out of each other and I, for one, am quite content with that :).
There are myriad levels of fuzziness. Wolves and coyotes as separate species=fuzzy, but good enough for government work. “Black” and “white” as distinct genetic races=so fuzzy as to be useless as a formal biological category. IMO.
Ring species, true ring species, are vanishingly rare and represent very unusual circumstances. Where gene flow is constant and there are behavioral isolating mechanisms preventing hybridization at the terminal ends of the ring ( note that all known ring species are still potentially interfertile at their termini ), you always seem to have a situation where extreme and extremely clinally variable ecological conditions have caused rapid adaptation. Humans are not ( MO ) subject to such unusual pressures.
That is quite a stretch. Quite a stretch. That is not even remotely comparable to the concept of a ring species ( we’re talking vastly different taxonomic levels here ).
Oh and just out of curiosity about what you are referring to, do you have a cite on that?
I would say that races/subspecies, as a taxonomic category, tend to have very limited utility for most species as a formal descriptor, because of their impermanence in time. It is not, in other words, usually an evolutionarily useful designation if we accept the tenets of most modern systematic philosophies on how organisms should be categorized ( there may be and probably are exceptions – True ring species may be one ). Races/subspecies do have an informal use as handy description of geographic morphs and such. This applies to humans as well ( though humans due to their global distribution are rather more complex than most, since they have probably had convergent adaptation to similar conditions multiple times, resulting in widely dispersed, phenotypically similar, but genotypically not as closely related populations – i.e. “blacks” in the Andaman Islands of the Bay of Bengal and in sub-Saharan Africa ).
If races as classically construed had a fairly tight genetic correspondence, then the category may very well have some practical meaning in biology. But all available evidence suggests that, as in most/many races/subspecies in most organisms, they do not ( a self-fulfilling prophecy as critters with tight genetic correspondence and little gene flow are increasingly being elevated to the level of full species ).
Just as an aside, I’ll note lucwarm that you seem to be attempting to pin down debaters on the other side on the consistency with which we apply terms and ideas in an attempt to make us be more concise. Fine debating tactic and perfectly appropriate :). Normally. However while science strives for precision, the natural world remains very imprecise and muddy. It is very difficult to model accurately 100% of the time, though lord knows folks are always striving to up the percentage. But questions like what is a distinct species or not isn’t always a clear line – Because nobody agrees 100% on the ground rules and it is often hard to fit every example into a single definition. Nature is messy that way.
“Aha!”, you say, “Then you admit that your standards are inconsistent and you apply them at a whim to satisfy your pre-conceived notions on what should be. Got You!”
Well, no – Biologists ( and unlike folks like Edwino or Colibri I wouldn’t claim that title for myself, as I don’t really “do” science, despite a little training ) try to be as consistent as possible under as broad a philosophical framework as possible. It is just sometimes, especially when it comes to speciation and evolutionary biology, some organisms have to be shoehorned in in an awkward way – Sometimes they are pounded into a square hole with a pneumatic hammer ( and they still don’t quite fit – unisexual lizards again ).
But humans aren’t a tough one. We are indisputably a single species. And all our sub-populations have been found to be very closely related to each other, even much more so than most large, widely dispersed terrestrial mammals ( humanity seems to have undergone a population bottleneck at some time in the geologically very recent past – this is part of the evidence feeding into the “Out of Africa” hypothesis ). Insomuch as some human populations may well have some slight uniqueness in allelic frequencies ( like I said, I don’t discount that hypothesis ), that has been shown, pretty definitively I think ( see the numerous cites by folks like Collounsbury ), not to extend to the large classical races with any degree of fidelity.
So when someone says “blacks” are better at certain types of athletic endeavors than “whites” because of genetics, even if there were some bit of truth to this in some sense ( unproven ), it would be at the very least an erroneous statement because it would be overbroad. If there is a population that has some consistent genetic superiority in jumping high, it’s not a huge catchall like “blacks” that encompasses hundreds of millions of people from disparate parts of the world, many of them ( especially in North America ) highly interbred with “non-blacks”. It probably wouldn’t even be “West Africans”, because the genetic diversity in that region seems to be unusually high, which argues against such a factor being so widespread. No, if there was any truth to it ( unproven ) it would be much more likely to be a far smaller, far more local population. And calling that population a biological race would be a confusing issue for historical reasons( plus the other arguments I raised ).
So race is fine. But probably not in a biological context. IMHO.
And with that I’m hopefully done with this topic – I really didn’t intend to get sucked into the “human side” of this debate :).
Well, I’m not sure what you mean by “proof” of “‘races.’”
In any event, it would be nice if everyone would accept the contrapositive of the last sentence above.
As far as evidence of “average group genetic differences” go, I think we can all agree that dramatic racial disparities have emerged in certain human endeavors, such as short-distance running. Some people believe that these disparities are 100% the result of cultural/sociological factors. Other people believe that genetic factors play a role too.
It seems to me that what you really mean when you say you haven’t seen “solid evidence” is that you haven’t seen any evidence that can’t be explained away culturally/sociologically.
Thus, to the extent that the cultural/sociological explanations fail (and IMHO, they are pretty lame) there is lots of evidence.
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It’s treated as though there is some genetic significance, no?
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Perhaps, but the reality is that it IS used. (feel free to correct me!!) As I said before, there is a difference between fuzzy and meaningless.
IMHO, the fact that cultural/sociological explanations do not account for the disparity yields a strong inference that there are genetic factors at work. The fact that nobody has been able to point out a particular gene/allele weakens this result only a little.
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I am sure that your civility will be missed.
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Like I said before, one exception won’t sink the ship.
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That’s not quite my question. There is no doubt that there would be, at a minimum, a small difference, since our hypothesis was that racial groups share many, most, or all of the alleles in edwino’s set “A.”
In any event, like I said, there is doubt in your mind. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt in edwino’s mind on the point. Or is there?
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Ok, so are you saying that even if the experiment were done, and even if a significant difference were detected, logically implying that defining characteristics had measurable predictive value about other characteristics, you would still reject the concept of race?
And in any event, can we agree that small inter-group differences (whether general or limited to certain sub-groups) would be sufficient to account for disparities in certain athletic results, at an elite level?
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I’m not sure what your point is here. What do you mean by “fixity”? And how is a situation where averages are different comparable to a situtaion where averages are the same?
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Well, it will be interesting to see what edwino’s position is.
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Maybe so, but my instinct is that there’s still a decent amount (of genetic distinctness) left. You should feel free to give me some numbers, though.
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My point was that just because two groups are interfertile, you can’t assume that they are “the same.” You don’t seem to disagree, however.
I agree that humans, for various reasons, are unlikely to end up as part of a ring species. But I don’t see any biological reason why it is impossible. And couldn’t it happen under the right circumstances? (maybe if we colonized outer space?)
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I’m not sure what your point is. It’s possible to make consistent, clear arguments about a muddy world.
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Maybe so, but if the scenario you describe were accurate, it would be fair to say that black dominance in short-distance running is caused, in part, by genetic factors. Maybe that would be an oversimplification, but it would still be true.
Actually I was looking for a cite on your putative Blue Whale-Human connection.
But at any rate, much as I hate to stick my neck out by disagreeing with the learned Richard Dawkins, who is much better edumacated, vastly more intelligent, and almost infinitely more articulate than I - He’s wrong :). I reiterate, true ring species aren’t common. Most allopatric speciation is probably not through the ring model, which posits continual gene-flow along the length of a cline and none between its terminal ends, but through genuine genetic isolation either through barriers or distance, but usually without significant intervening gene flow. Ring species are a curious variant of allopatric speciation where the geographic barrier is a huge hole in a donut-shaped range, with a significant ecological cline, around which a species disperses. I have no idea if humans speciated from other hominids in ring-fashion, but I doubt it. Rather we appear to be the result of peripatric ( not parapatric ) speciation.
Oh and he’s also wrong in that the two gull species in question do hybridize - Just not commonly :).
At some time probably around 100,000 B.P., probably in Africa (Cavalli-Sforza, 1989; Stringer, 1984), a group from one of the varieties of Homo became isolated. Inbreeding in a species already undergoing change produced some features which would have reduced its probability of survival, except that one feature conferred an advantage which more than compensated. Such peripatric speciation can result from a rapid reorganisation of the gene pool when a population passes through a bottleneck in population size, and is usually accompanied by rapid and drastic morphological changes (Mayr, 1981).
luc, as I’ve also said in the “hard and fast” thread, “Race” may exist but it is of extremely little value as a biologic concept.
I can define race easily: a set of external superficial characteristics that leads to a stable identification as a member of a sociologic group. Sure, that exists, and is weakly correlated with some other factors. It is fuzzy at the edges, but so are most other concepts when you get down to it (which is my defended position in that other thread)
But the question in biology is whether a means of classifying, of subdividing, is the best or most useful means of doing so. If it tells us something about the biologic mechanisms of the distribution of other factors that biologists care about. Race is appropriately cast aside as a biologic concept because other means of subdivision fit the data significantly better and more comprehensively. Other means of subdivision help suggest testable hypotheses about migration and about disease states and about phenotypic variations not included as part of that set of external superficial characeristics that lead to identification as a member a particular sociologic group. We use race conceptually only up to the point that we don’t have the means to use something better. Biology is past that point even if that hasn’t translated into full clinical utility yet.
Does one’s political preconceptions influence this debate? Sure. The David Dukes would love to hear a scientist say that there is a racial basis for any group’s “superiority” in any measure and then use that to justify their racist views by twisting it into a warped psuedocience. The full blown bleeding heart doesn’t want to hear anything that implies that we aren’t all exactly equal underneath. But in between is the reality that race is just a lousy way of subdividing humanity for the purposes of understanding issues relavent to biology. It is looking under a lamppost because the light is good there, if you get my drift.
How significant is this lack of evidence? How much research has been done in this area, and how much understanding do we have of the genetic factors that might produce such an advantage? It would seem to me that since race has at best an extremely limited utility in science - if any at all - it is likely that the matter has never and will never be fully studied. Which would leave it in the realm of speculative and possibly unimportant but possible.
In the area of athletic accomplishment, the evidence in favor of a Black advantage is only at the upper end. There is no evidence (that I know of) to suggest an average advantage. In light of this, the significance of any possible genetic differences being very small is lessened. This because even a very small difference in the overall distribution can produce a disproportionately large difference at the extreme tails. So while it would not support “race in the classical sense” it would possibly be a cause of the observed disparity.
Well, Dawkins quote applies to “all pairs of related species.” I assume this includes humans and whales.
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I think that Dawkins was using the phrase “ring species” in a broader sense than you use it. He meant any situation where two species are connected by a chain of species, where each adjacent pair is interfertile.
And I think that you haven’t really undermined my basic point in bringing up Dawkins, which is that just because two groups are interfertile, they are not necessarily “the same.”
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Thanks, I’ll check it out. In the meantime, maybe you could take a crack at some of the questions I’ve asked you:
**Ok, so are you saying that even if the experiment were done, and even if a significant difference were detected, logically implying that defining characteristics had measurable predictive value about other characteristics, you would still reject the concept of race?
And in any event, can we agree that small inter-group differences (whether general or limited to certain sub-groups) would be sufficient to account for disparities in certain athletic results, at an elite level? **
I’d be inclined to strike the word “extremely,” but I basically agree.
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Basically agree.
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Basically agree, but I think race still has some utility in medicine. I wouldn’t be surprised if that utility were totally gone in 20 years.
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Speak for yourself.
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Sure, and if you find a dollar bill sitting under that lampost, it’s a dollar bill no matter what. Doesn’t matter if closer inspection reveals a $10 bill a few feet away in the shadows. There’s still a buck under that lamppost.
I really have to work on this willpower thing I’ve been hearing about ( oh well, least I’m doing a just a little better avoiding those Israel/Palestine threads ).
Izzy -
I honestly don’t know. I am nowhere near enough informed on recent research on human population genetics to answer that, one way or the other. Assuming that question hasn’t been answered before in a previous thread ( I don’t recall ).
That seems possible ( if we’re talking the isolated population hypothesis - I think the evidence on large classical races pretty much disproves using the term race in this context ). I suspect it would be a very difficult thing to prove.
Well, again, I grant there is a possibility that some population exists for which such a tiny edge like that might exist, yes. It just would be wrong ( which was the whole origin of this argument way back when, as I recall ) to cast that in terms of race in a broad sense - To do so would be technically inaccurate and obfuscatory because it would mask the real detail of what is going on.
It would be on a par with Dawkins’ clumsy use of the term “ring species” ;).
lucwarm-
Ah, no. I think in context he was trying to point towards the equivalent of the wolf-coyote dichotomy we discussed above.
Sloppy of him, you’re correct ;).
Oh, true on some levels and in some cases. But the application to humans in this context is minimal ( nil ), as per ( among other things ) the two links I posted above.
But experiments have been done and significant differences haven’t been detected :). So it’s a bit of a speculative “what if question”, eh?
If experiments were to prove that there was a very significant conservation of genotypes mapping out clearly to the old classical race concept, with minimal overlap, I will happily admit to being somewhat intellectually flummoxed because it would fly in the face of expected reality. It would pique my curiosity and cause me to investigate closer what sort of mechanism could be responsible for such huge, widely distributed groups maintaining such strong genetic fidelity. What I would still reject the concept of race? In some respects yes, because I know the reality of other organisms and how it is applied. However it would cause me to re-evaluate it in regards to humans and wonder if we might be an exception to the rule.
However this is speculative, because we do already have ( some of, to hedge my bets here ) the answers. Oh and if the above scenario were true, I would tend to suspect that other known facts of human populations genetics, like our unusually low level of genetic diversity in general ( relative to related taxa ), would also not be true ( or as true, at any rate ).
I don’t think I can get behind the “in general” part, but the “certain sub-groups” part I’ll allow the possibility ( as I have before ). And although I may be wrong about this, I think a number of the so-called “no race” folks have agreed with this in the past as well.
Then why did he describe a chain from human to chimpanzee?
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That may be so, but I’m testing the general proposition that interfertile groups are “the same.” Can we agree that it is incorrect?
Umm, you’re totally contradicting yourself.
Here’s what you said before, when I asked you what the result of the experiment would be:
Then later, you said this:
Now you say this:
Let’s face reality: you’re dancing.
But feel free to cite whatever experiments you want that did not find differences between the average intra-Caucasion genetic distance and the average Caucasian/Black genetic distance.
Honestly, I’d be interested to see them.
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I’m not sure what sort of experiment you’re proposing, but it sounds like you’re setting up a bit of a strawman.
Remember, the experiment I proposed was very simple: Measure the average genetic distance between pairs of Caucasians, and compare it to the average genetic distance between pairs of one Caucasian and one Black.
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Ok fine. That means that the latest standard you proposed for rejecting race makes the “does race exist” issue basically irrelevant to the question of the reasons for black dominance in short-distance running.
I had promised tomndebb I would try to find an example of “bait and switch.” Well, there ya go. (Yes, I know what you did was unintentional, Tamerlane. But in defending the “no race” position, people have a tendency to retreat to more and more defensible ground, until their position is no longer relevant to whatever perceived racial disparity was being discussed in the first place.)
I found this quote upon review of this thread, and I would like to callenge Edwino’s conclusion. First of all, my money is on the concept of genetic diversity to explain the phenomenon of elite athletic morphology among a few black people. I hope that comes across as intended. Now don’t you think black people are over represented in music and the performing arts? Perhaps because I live in a country with so few black people, but on American televsion they seem to dominate way beyond the 13% demographic that one would expect. And when it come to jazz, my favourite well… I would suggest that if black prodigies are lacking in academics other than the fine arts, and I’m not saying that they are, then I could quite easily accept that cultural restraint similar to what black athletes prior to Jackie Robinson experienced might well be a factor there.
Now I want to ask a question because there appears to be a discrepency of fact between several well educated posters in this thread. Is the greater genetic diversity of Africans relevant to Africa as a whole, or is it correct to attribute greater genetic diversity for West Africans relative to the rest of the world?
lucwarm: No, sir. Not even remotely. We’re talking two different things and I’m not sure why you are making the leap from one to another. You asked if it is conceivable that if you measured the average genetic difference between the universe of pairs of caucasians and compared that to average genetic difference between a single pair of one caucasians and one black could you find some difference. I allowed that it is possible. In fact it is easy, because that is a poor comparison - who knows what sort of genetic oddity any given caucasian or black might be. A better comparison ( and I recast your question roughly in this light ) would be the entire universe of caucasian pairs vs. the entire universe of caucasian/black pairs. Even then I would allow it is possible.
I then said I wouldn’t find such a measurement significant. In the first case definitely not - comparing a huge sample size vs. a tiny one can turn up any sort of anomaly. In the second case some small difference in average genetic difference doesn’t mean diddly squat, in the sense of making a sharp demarcation between the races ( or even a good fuzzy one ) because it ignores the potential overlap in genotypes. Which isn’t potential, because a large overlap has been demonstrated. Human races are not genetically isolate and a small average genetic distance, if they existed, does not/would not be good evidence of racial boundaries IMO. A former professor of my acquanitance once referred to this sort of situation as ‘the meaninglessness of means’.
You then asked if it was found that there were significant genetic differences between the classical races, would it call into question my views on the concept of race. I said in so many words that people have looked into the matter already and not found any significant genetic differences. Therefore your question is speculative at best and I answered in that spirit. In case you getting hung up on this point - I was not considering your proposed experiment, even if that is what you were considering in your head when you asked the question, because quite frankly I don’t care what the results of that particular study would be - As you phrased it, the results, no matter what they were, would not be significant proof of anything.
Nor was I proposing an experiment - I was an answering your question in a speculative way and their is NO strawman to be seen.
Either your comprehension is poor, mine is worse, we are both talking completely past each other, or it is you that is deliberately using bait and switch tactics.
) species. Weasely? Not much IMO, but I’ll get to that point.