I read Tamerlane as stating that there is no sharp demarcation of biologic characteristics or alleles between “the races.” And I do not think that luc is saying that there is. He is asking if there is any correlation between identified sociologic group membership and other factors, and if so, could such differences contribute to the percieved predominance of Blacks in some fields.
greinspace, I do not think that the answer to your question is known … one would doubt that it is because biologically those identified sociologically as “Black” are of varied and sundried population origins … then again maybe that very fact would make such a group very diverse, haplotypically speaking. I dunno. I do think that it is possible, possible, that Blacks have greater haplotypic diversity than many other sociologically identified groups. And that such would possibly result in a greater percentage of high end sigma outliers being members of that group, unless other factors held them down (as you suggest, cultural restraint, or poverty, whatever). A small increase invariation about the mean could have a significant effect on the far tails. Is such a hypothesis testable? Possibly, but only at great effort and expense. And why would anyone care whether or not it is so? Why is that a question of scientific interest?
BTW, luc, congratulations. I, for one, had thought that Tamerlane was absolutely impossible to annoy, and above the fray.
Oh come on, my question was clear enough, and later I made sure it was totally clear.
Here’s what I said first:
(emphasis supplied)
Later, I said this:
Do you honestly believe that I was proposing an experiment that looked only at a single measurement? Be honest.
That may be so, but a significant difference would mean that edwino was pretty much wrong. And like I said in my last post, if we adopt your standard, then the question of whether or not “race exists” is basically irrelevant to the question of race and athletics.
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Where did I ask this? I believe that I asked the following question:
Of course, the “experiment” I was referring to was the same one I had proposed earlier.
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Well, I assumed that you were answering the question I asked. If you had a different experiment in mind than the one I was referring to in my question, feel free to share it.
QUOTE]*Originally posted by DSeid *
Are you each asking the same questions?
[/quote]
Probably not :).
Actually, he seems to be hedging to me - Not agreeing one way or another but trying to rhetorically trip one party or another into either admitting that maybe such demarcations exist under some ( non-sociological ) definition or just prove that we are internally inconsistent in our reasoning. Which is perfectly legal I guess, but I find it frustrating because I’m not the best debater in the world, even if I think the facts are more on my side :).
But I may be completely mistaken.
Hmmm, yes. But I thought we had more or less settled on that one. I think it is possible ( though unproven ) that genetic factors could conceivably exist for small groups and the larger those groups get the less likely they are to exist and be retained as a strict function of that sociological group, until we finally get to a point where eventually this putative advantage would disappear. The only argument would seem to be at what point is that final stage reached.
But anywho I think we are just circling and arguing minutia at this point, which is as much my fault as anyone’s. I am interested evolutionary biology, but unlike Edwino and some others, my interest in human genetics is really pretty minimal. Actually my interest in human biology in general is pretty minimal. I just started out wanting to make a minor point about modern controversies over the subspecies category in non-human organisms, not get involved in iteration #92 of the blacks in sports argument :). Especially since I really can’t do the topic justice compared to others. I’m going to try for the eighth time to bow out.
What? Who was annoyed!? Well, okay, you got me - but it was partly self-inflicted so I’m only willing to give lucwarm at best 50% credit :D.
Honestly, lucwarm? I was sufficiently annoyed and flustered at being accused of “dancing” and using “bait and switch” tactics that I did get confused about what you originally asked ( and didn’t go back and check ). So you are correct - I misspoke :). But I got what you said originally and I replied in essence to both meanings, both my concocted one and your actual question, so my answer still stands.
Further, you are correct in another respect - I read “even this experiment” as “even if experiments”. So, no, I was not considering your example ( probably because mentally I had already dismissed that argument and I answered that question without referring back to the original post where it was made). So you are completely absolved of inflicting frustration on me and I apologize sincerely for not paying close enough attention to your words.
I still don’t think the results of your experiment would necessarily yield what I would consider significant evidence for the biological existence of race as is popularly construed.
Well, since I am obviously a little slow today, rephrase that for me and explain your reasoning about what you think my standard is and how that would make the argument irrelevant. I might just agree, but I’m not wrapping my mind around it at the moment.
Oh and since I never answered you on the Dawkins query/clarification - As humans are to chimps ( actually bonobos, but close enough ), so wolves are to coyotes ( actually more likely domestic dogs, but close enough ). They are pairs of related species. Humans and blue whales are a pair of very unrelated species.
I hate to pick at a scab, but come on!! I didn’t make those comments until AFTER you got “confused.”
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So your answer to my original question remains that you don’t know, right?
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Well, maybe so, but I think that edwino might disagree. When giving his explanation for why he rejected race, he went throught the whole thing about corellations, genetic distance, etc. If that explanation turned out to be based on incorrect facts, then presumably he would no longer reject the concept of race. Whaddya think edwino?
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Sure. A small average genetic advantage in short-distance running, whether possessed by blacks in general, or by a sub-group of blacks, would be sufficient to account for the black dominance in short-distance running. Correct?
And your position seems to be that even if such a genetic difference were demonstrated, you would still reject the concept of race. Correct?
Now, what is the contrapositive of your reasoning?
For the sake of convenience, I will abbreviate Genetic Advantage as G.A. and Existence of Race as E.R.
You are saying that G.A. does not imply E.R.
The contrapositive of this statement is that not E.R. does not imply not G.A. This logically follows from what you are saying. (logicians, feel free to correct me!!!)
Think about what this means: The lack of existence of race (as you are currently defining it) does not imply the lack of existence of a genetic advantage as I described above.
So, if somebody asks whether the perceived black dominance in short-distance running is the result of some sort of genetic advantage, and you respond that the answer is probably (or definitely) “no,” since race does not exist, you would have just responded with a total non-sequitur.
Note that if you had followed edwino’s reasoning and rejected race on the grounds that he proposed, your (hypothetical) argument might have validity.
And that’s the problem I’m pointing out. “No race” seems to mean different things to different people. These differences are important. And if a broad formulation of the concept is used to deny the possibility of a genetic explanation for black dominance in short-distance running; and a weak formulation is what is actually defended in the ensuing debate over whether “race exists,” then there has been a “bait and switch.”
A genetic correlation among fast sprinters does not give us “race” unless we posit hundreds of “races” throughout the world–which is not the meaning of the word by anyone’s use. I have noted in past threads that the possibility of a genetic connection between the fastest sprinters and genetics is possible. The current information (which takes as a sample, people running in specific athletic competitions over a specifically limited period of time) can be considered suggestive of such a correlation. But a genetic correlation (if found) for a small group does not get us to race.
As I’ve looked over the comments by edwino, Tamerlane, Tars Tarkas, and DSeid, in this thread and the companion “Hard and fast” thread that DSeid started I have begun to back away from the “absolute” distinction I had maintained earlier. (For example, I had been under the impression the the non-interbreeding ends of a ring species were genetically identical and that the non-breeding was behavioral, not the result of infertility.) Certainly, my position was never quite as absolute as the one edwino seems to have been expressing.
On the other hand, even backing away from absolutes, (my position seems to be most similar to that of Tamerlane), I do not see how we make the jump from “genetic factors” in a perceived group to “race.” The word race implies a “great division” of humanity. How small do you permit this “great division” to get before the word is meaningless? Everyone can find genetic correlations among themselves and their cousins. Is every family identified by a grandparent a race? Are each of us members of four separate grandparental races and eight great-grandparental races, etc.?
The correlation between fast sprinters and Africans is actually a correlation between fast Sprinters and (of the top 50 sprinters) seven Nigerians, two Ghanans, and 41 men of some African ancestry (supposed to be from the region extending from Senegal to Cameroon, based on the normal slave trade from Africa to the Americas and Caribbean and with no family histories of the 41–with Nigeria and Ghana in the heart of that strip). So where do we identify the race? Suppose we demonstrate that the population along the African Coast below the western bulge contains a population with sufficient genetic diversity to provide extended extremes in performance at the ends of the bell curve. How do you get from that vaguely defined population to race? If it turns out that that population is centered on Nigeria and Ghana, do you create a race of only a 170,000,000 people (stretching from Nigeria to Ghana) that is less than 3% of the world’s population (ignoring the fact that the actual number is probably smaller because Nigeria, alone, includes over 250 groups that are recognized as ethnically separate)?
It is not “bait and switch” to note that even finding a genetic component of something does not get us to a race. Race is not merely the presence of genetic correlation; it is the presence of a genetic correlation among a large division of humanity. Every “non race” poster that I can recall (saving sjgouldrocks) has noted the identification of genetically correlated populations within the world–and noted that they were too small to bear the word race. Claiming that the “race” opponents have limited the argument to genetics would be disingenuous, since the size of the genetically related group has always been a part of the discussion. Limiting the definition solely to genetics would lead to defining race to mean groups as small as second generation cousins.
I’m not edwino, but I have already noted that if such correlations could actually be demonstrated, I would accept the concept of race. In fact, I did accept it up until the late 1990s when the scientific information began to to be published demonstrating that the correlation does not exist.
I’m not sure what you mean by “genetic correlation among fast sprinters,” but I’ll assume you’re speaking of the same “G.A.” that I referred to above. In other words, that blacks as a whole, or some subgroup thereof, have a small average genetic advantage over others in short-distance running.
So you are saying (as did Tamerlane) that G.A. does not imply E.R.
Fine. That means that ~E.R. does not imply ~G.A. So if somebody suggests that there does exist a genetic advantage, the “no race” argument is totally irrelevant.
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That alone is not a “bait and switch.” But if you also argue that the nonexistence of race implies the nonexistence of a genetic advantage, you are guilty guilty guilty.
And since I’ve been using logical expressions, I’ll express the argument symbolically.
~(G.A. --> E.R.)
and
~E.R. --> ~G.A.
are logically inconsistent. If you try to dodge the inconsistency by redefining E.R., you have done a bait & switch.
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I have no idea what your point is here. Corellations between what and what?
And by the way, since you’re back, would you mind pointing out which of my earlier questions you found objectionable? And do you now agree that your earlier statement – “you did not” – was incorrect?
Collounsbury has provided a substantial amount of evidence (which has been discarded by some as not conclusive) that there is no genetic coherence to the “West African Sprinters.” The rest of us (subject to DSeid’s amendation regarding the extremes on the bell curve) have said we find no evidence of (that is, literature indicating) the genetic coherence among the “West African Sprinters.” No one that I recall has said that the “West African Sprinters” could not have a genetic advantage because “race does not exist.”
Everyone on the “non race” side has already acknowledged the presence of genetically coherent populations within humanity. The point is that no population has been identified that can be described as a “race” using the classic definition of “race.” One could use “race” to mean a family unit (it has a genetic coherence), but no one would understand the person using that terminology. If someone described a new “race” of “West African Sprinters,” the immediate quetion is “Who is in that ‘race’?” We have no definition of the WAS boundaries. We have no way to identify a member unless they happen to be among the bell curve extremes who sprint quickly. If a race is one of the major divisions of humanity, how does one identify a race when the only marker is sporadic athletic excellence at the extreme ends of the population.
If you’re a really fast sprinter with dark skin, you’re WAS, but if you have dark skin and run like tomndebb on a full stomach we aren’t sure what you are.
The point is that we do recognize that populations exist, but that they do not satisfy the definition of “race” which requires that such populations are large enough to be major divisions of humanity.
As to your fixation in your last question: I do not discern a difference between my rewording of the question you asked edwino–to which I had included a “yes” answer–and the further reworded question that you then repeated back to me, so it appears that you are simply trying to score points, and I am not interested in playing that game.
No - You’re taking my answer just a little too literally. I’m saying that that chimps ( pygmy chimps in this instance ) are the closest living relatives of humans. Similarly, wolves are the closest living relatives of coyotes. That’s all. They are each closely related ( relatively ) species pairs. The fact that one pair is closer than the other doesn’t make a difference in that sense.
Given that Dawkins was talking about the similarly paired gulls Larus argentatus and Larus fuscus, my assumption ( and I’d lay 10:1 odds I’m right in this ) is that when he said “related pairs of species”, he meant more or less closely related pairs of species, with the “closely” being understood. It’s quite true all animal species are related at some distant level. But generally speaking a biologist wouldn’t refer to whales and humans in those terms - The mental gestalt of trained biologists ( at least organismic biologists ) would tend to lean against it. Unless you were deliberately drawing a contrast, like “humans and blue whales are more closely related species to each other than either is to the western dog tick.”
If the question is, “are all animal species related to each other through some continuous chain of interfertile populations that slowly diverged from one another”, the answer is ( almost certainly ), no. Allopatric speciation is not the only mode of speciation.
In context, I think he meant something what I said above. I’d be willing to bet $$ on it ;). But I can’t absolutely prove it without asking the man himself.
Now then, on to my not-so-brightness…
I didn’t quite get your example ( my problem, I’m sure ) the first time you made it, I think I got it ( maybe ) when you clarified, and I muffed it and fell back in to my original thinking after I got ( unnecessarily - I didn’t mean to get pissy ) flustered. You can think me a big weasel if you like, but if I was trying to eel around it, I wouldn’t have picked an explanation that makes me look so stupid :D. Take it as you like. Or not. shrug
In essense, yes. But let me elaborate on it for a sec.
I will say that we do seem to know ( more or less ) that sub-Saharan African populations ( which make up a substantial portion, though hardly all, of what would popularly be considered “black” ) have a higher level of genetic variability than any other tested group of populations. Given that, I would guess ( a WAG, at that ) that the average variability between all “white” pairs, would be less than the average variability between all “black” pairs. Make sense as a supposition?
Just given that discrepancy, I think it is quite possible that there would be more variability between white/black pairs than white/white pairs, with who knows what kind of value vis-a-vis all black/black pairs ( could be less, could be more ). The thing is we don’t know where that variability may come from. It could be 95% of all white/black pairing are virtually indistinguishable from in terms of average variability from white/white pairs, but a few percent are highly variable ( maybe geographically isolate populations, maybe just numerous individual anomalies ), which would be enough to skew the results.
Given that possibility, do you see why I have a hard time accepting the results of your test as being diagnostic for determining large-scale races? It just doesn’t provide clear enough information as to what is going on.
Conceivably, yes. Though assuming it is a small sub-population, using the phrase “black dominance” would be inherently inaccurate and misleading. That’s why the big racial categories aren’t of much utility :).
Incorrect. My position is that your proposed test does not give us that information :).
I agree there can be confusion here, yes.
I see your point. I’m just not sure that I agree that that has been what has been going on in these arguments.
Actually, let me amend that as I was still still mentally fixating on your experiment. To restate my views:
I think the category of race/subspecies in biology, often has extremely limited evolutionary meaning. As a formal taxonomic category, I’m not crazy about it. However I am not adverse in practice to using the designation informally in some situations ( highly variable ), as long as it is understood just how little it usually means. My own view - Some professional biologists would disagree.
When it comes to humans, I would not be theoretically adverse to labeling a population that showed the sort of consistent genetic difference you’re talking about, a race, with the above caveats understood. However, in practice I don’t think it is a good term, just because of historical baggage. It is not the connotation most people associate with, when you refer to race in regards to humans. I would prefer to just leave it at “population”, because of that.
I further believe there is no good evidence for the existence of even semi-discrete “classical races”, in anything but a sociological/cultural sense. Even as a morphotype, it is pretty loose. I think the odds of anything like the sort of evidence you are talking about showing up consistently in such a broad, huge group, are slim to none. In fact I would say it is pretty darn close to having been definitively disproven.
I do not think the results of your test, as cast, would be diagnostic for determining large, “classic race” categories, nor would they accurately identify any high-performing genetic sub-populations.
Also, to date, there is no evidence ( other than anecdotal supposition ) to suggest that consistent genetic differences that would account for any sort of expressed athletic superiority, exist in any population, anywhere in the world. This does not mean they may not be out there. Just that, as it stands, it remains an unproven hypothesis.
I believe my views as above, give or take my second and fifth paragraph, are pretty consistent with that of most of the “no race” folks on the board ( we’ll except an overenthusiastic one or two ).
In this very thread, IzzyR made the following point:
And here was your response:
It’s not clear what your point was, but you certainly didn’t seem to be agreeing with him. I suppose that you might be limiting yourself to rejecting a Genetic Advantage that applies to an entire race, as opposed to a sub-group. But that only leads to the next question:
If it were demonstrated that, on average, blacks had an advantage in short distance running over other groups - would you accept the concept of race?
If pointing out that others have misrepresented my position is “scoring points,” then I’m guilty as charged.
You accused me of asking questions that “shift constantly.” Which questions?
And do you now agree that your earlier statement (“you did not”) was incorrect?
And where did I say that I “see the choice of language ‘affected’ by political considerations”?
I could not say for sure offhand that someone has declared outright that there can’t be a genetic advantage because race does not exist. But it has been at least implied over and over again. It is constantly brought up as an answer to the question of whether a genetic advantage (or other genetic differences) exist. See, for example, collounsbury’s responses to the thread titled Why are African-American athletes better than white american athletes If someone asks if a genetic advantage can exist and the response is that the premise is all wrong because race does not exist, then this is indeed being said.
Look, can we agree that Dawkins described a LITERAL chain (i.e. hand to hand) of creatures (most of whom are from extinct species) from human to chimpanzee?
And, assuming that such a hypothetical chain can be constructed from human to chimp, is there any reason, in principle, why such a chain could not be constructed from human to blue whale? (besides a possible lack of ability to hold hands)?
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Ok, but what if the last six words are stricken from your question?
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I think there was some weaseling in there, but whatever.
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It’s not so much a test as a challenge to edwino.
Ok. (Feel free to suggest another simple descriptor for what everyone has observed - that elite short-distance running is dominated by blacks.)
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I’m not sure what you are saying here. If Genetic Advantage (as I defined it earlier) were demonstrated uncontrovertably, would you accept the concept of race or not? [I now see that you have elaborated on this point a bit. Feel free to respond to this, but I haven’t yet considered your subsequent post.]
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Well, can we agree that a lot of different justifications for the “no race” position have been offered?
Sure. He was incorrectly using the term ring species when referring to hominids in my estimation, but your summation of his point is correct. I think the conclusions he was drawing from it were a little bit of a stretch, but that’s neither here nor there.
In principle, no. And given these are both mammals, the allopatric model ( with assumed interfertility at some point in time ) may well be appropriate for all of the enormous number of intermediates between them. But ‘child-parent’ bond doesn’t necessarily mean interfertility ( which I think is what we were arguing about )and we shouldn’t assume that facet ( see below ). I was going to diss Dawkins about this, when I noticed he never explicitly said such ‘child-parent bonds’ represented interfertile populations - He was more careful than I thought ;).
Ah, well Tars Tarkas beat me to it, but no. Spontaneous mutations in selfing plants is one example, but so are hybridization events in plant and a few animal species. Some estimates are that up to half of all plant species arose by hybrid polyploidy or similar events. Quoting:
*How much genetic change is needed to create a new species?
Perhaps not as much as you might think. For example, changes at one or just a few gene loci might do the trick. For example, a single mutation altering flower color or petal shape could immediately prevent cross-pollination between the new and the parental type.*
S’okay, I forgive you your justified suspicion :D.
A lot of different turns around the wheel, with some different justifications/explanations. But I’m not so sure they’re all 100% incompatible.
mmmm? In the first two pages of the linked thread, Collounsbury was interacting with people making broad statements about “blacks” being athletically gifted and he was at great pains to point out that there is no coherent group such as “blacks.” On the last page of that thread the topic focussed on the West African population and he only used the word race in one single post–and not to deny athletic superiority because of it. I saw no point at which Col claimed that the genetic advantage could not exist because race does not exist.
Who are these “blacks”? If the answer is that we find a disproportionate percentage of exceptional sprinters among people with no genetic relationship across the entire continent of Africa than we find in the other settled land masses, it could be anything from a statistical fluke to a host of other reasons. If they are not genetically related, how do you classify them as a race? What does race mean, then, if it does not indicate shared characterisitics and shared descent?
If, however, someone found the genetic component to the athletic excellence that could be traced to some small population that slavery has spread into the Americas, then that population, would not meet the criterion of being a “major division of humanity.”
For that matter, why do you concentrate on this as-yet-totally-unidentified genetic correlation between athletic excellence in some small portion of the population and race? Why not base race on lactose-tolerance/intolerance? Why not base race on sickle-cell prevalence/absence? Those are already traits that we have identified and can plot. They don’t happen to map well onto people’s perceptions of what race ought to look like, but they are substantially more solid than a hypothetical tendency to find a few members who are athletically gifted.
If there is found a set of coherent markers (perhaps at the sub-allele level that has not yet been identified) that link some enormous number of Africans, I would think that we would have the possible basis for an identified race. (Certainly we would have better evidence for shared descent.) However, those markers would have to be both inclusive and exclusive. If the same markers were found in some high percentage of non-Africans, they would cease to indicate an “African” race. If no similar markers were found among any other group, we would have then established only two races: marker-indicated and not-marker-indicated.
Stepping back: What does “race” mean?
Classically, it has meant one of the three/five/sixty “great divisions” of humanity sharing common descent. If race simply means “some group of people we want to group together,” why use the word “race” with its connotations of great divisions and common descent? It seems that using race to indicate whatever we happen to want to lump together at the moment is, at best, counter-productive.
If a group is too small to be a “great division” or has no common descent, why would anyone want to apply the word race to that group?
Actually lucwarm, since I fear we are drifting farther and farther off-topic here on this human-blue whale thing, let’s just go back to the original statement that started it and see if we can’t just put it to bed in one fell swoop.
Edwino said:
To which you replied ( in part ):
So far we’re largely on the same page - Such complexes do in fact exist as you correctly cited. Although technically you didn’t actually contradict Edwino as he was talking about how such a series does not exist in the present day among distantly related taxa, which is also correct. All known exampes of ring complexes are of very closely related taxa. Still, your point was well-taken that such complexes can exist under certain circumstances.
You then said:
Here is where we got off-track. You and edwino are talking about superficially similar, but temporally different situations. My corrections/protests were coming from the Edwino side, if you like - That is that different living species connected by actual chains of interfertile populations are pretty rare in real-time. In real life, when defining species, Edwino’s argument is both accurate ( the vast majority of species are indeed quantifiable, even if a little roughly at times, by reproduction ) and inaccurate ( but reproductive isolation does not always imply a lack of interfertility ). Your argument, aside from that interfertility is not always the key to defining species ( again, correct IMO ), is that all humans and blue whales presumably shared a common ancestor at some distant ( very, very distant in this case ) time in the past and therefore one can argue that we are linked by a continuous chain of what were at one time, some sort of interfertile population of animals.
Quite possible, even plausible ( since we’re talking mammals ), but not really relevant to determining species boundaries in the here and now. Also, extremely plausible or not, I would argue that we actually shouldn’t make that assumption, because we just don’t know the actual sequence and mechanism of all those countless speciation events.
