The point is that criticisms of race categories being imprecise can also be levelled at other categories such as gender or age. That’s the point Risch is making. It doesn’t mean they’re invalid (sorry, you may not have been suggesting this).
If you take the approach to race that is used in terms of other species then there are human races. Jerry Coyne had a well done post on this the other day.
And when you or Risch can provide a quote ofwhere someone has ever said that sex *can *be categorised based upon chromosomal markers, this won’t be a total strawman. Since nobody has ever made such a claim, it neatly refutes a position that nobody has ever actually held.
What it doesn’t address at all is the genuinely expressed criticism that self-reported race is not in any sense objective. Self-reportage of race is the ultimate subjective classification scheme. As such, the fact that it correlates to something that is objective doesn’t change a damn thing.
I think I can conclusively say that the people who self-report eating echida in the last week will also have a high degree of correlation to all sorts of biological factors. That doesn’t make “echidna eater” a biologically valid racial group.
Or maybe you think that “echidna eater” is a race?
No they can’t, because nobody has ever cliamed that you can categorise sex by looking at chromomal markers.
You are criticising a classification scheme that nobody has ever used, saying that it is worse than the classification scheme that you do use, and concluding that this proves that your scheme has validity.
It’s a blatant strawman.
Absolute rubbish.
Far from being well done, it’s a textbook example of of begging the question.
The entire essay hinges on his assertion that “As we all know, there are morphologically different groups of people who live in different areas”. Coyne makes this assertion, and everything he writes thereafter hinges upon it being accepted.
Well I have news for Mr. Coyne: we do not all know this. I do not know this. The foremost anatomists and geneticists ion the world do not know this.
So how about you or Mr. Coyne *demonstrate *that there are morphologically different groups of people who live in different areas, rather than simply asserting that everybody knows to be true.
You can start by naming these groups of people, and telling us how they are morphologically distinctive. We ask you to do this in every single race thread, and you utterly refuse to do so.
You always keep coming back with the same BS claim that there are groups of people who are physically distinctive, yet your are utterly unable to tell us what they are.
I think that’s all we need to know about these claims.
Not in any sense that it is ordinary used. Risch links it back to geographic ancestry. That is consistent with Coyne’s definition above from evolutionary biology: *morphologically distinguishable populations that live in allopatry (i.e. are geographically separated). *
That is also consistent with Ernst Mayr’s “The subspecies category has been defined as “a geographically defined aggregate of local populations which differ taxonomically from other subdivisions of the species.”
Risch refers to the classically proposed races of Sub Saharan Africans, Caucasians, Pacific Islanders, Amerindians, and East Asians. See: figure 1 in Risch et al (2002) “Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease,”and table 1 in Gill (1998) “Craniofacial criteria in the skeletal attribution of race.”
Also see this previous debate thread.
So Risch’s test did not correlate to race at all, rather they correlate to geographic ancestry, which you concede is no more race than “echidna eater” is a race.
So, in short, that little excursion of yours provides no evidence at all that race has an objective basis. All it shows is that you can generate a genetic correlation to any subjective self-reported criterion you like, provided the criterion has some correlation to geographic ancestry, and regardless of whether there is any correlation whatsoever to race.
It is also consistent with the existence of unicorns. It doesn’t provide any *evidence *for the existence of unicorns any more than it provides evidence for the existence of geographically defined aggregate of local populations which differ taxonomically from other subdivisions.
But it’s consistent with both.
I think you should be telling that to the people who regularly assert that “race is just a social construct” – as if that should have some important meaning.
I will try if you assert that you are seriously skeptical that I asked the question. Keep in mind that this is not the only forum where I discuss these issues.
I’m not sure I understand your definition. Would you say that “The South” is a scientifically valid category? What about “The New York City Metropolitan Area”? What about “worms”? What about “tall people”? What about “overweight people.”? What about “heavy smokers”?
It might be close enough not to make a big difference in one’s observations. Different people might have different understandings of what exactly are “The South”; and “The North.” And yet it snows less in the South. And the difference is due to latitude. We can quibble over whether Tulsa, Alexandria, or El Paso should be included in “The South,” but it won’t make a difference.
Re-read the definitions and post above.
And? Are you claiming that Sub Saharan African is a morphologically different group of people?
Because if you are not making such a claim, this post is completely non-repsonsive.
So I ask once again: Can you name these morphologically different groups of people?
I’m not asking you to give us a list of races that someone else uses for some other purpose. I am asking you to give us the list of races that you claim to be morphologically different groups of people.
I am also asking you to tell us how these they are morphologically distinctive.
So, are you claiming that sub-Saharan Africans, Caucasians and East Asians are morphologically distinct?
Because it is going to be trivially easy to prove that you can not distinguish them based upon morphology.
I’ve just provided you with a link to forensic anthropologist George Gill saying otherwise.
I *am *one of those people who keeps saying that race is just a social construct, and I have no idea what point you think you are making here.
Race *is * just a social construct. It has no validity within the objective, rational framework of science because it is either subjective or irrational or, usually, both.
That is the important meaning of “just a social construct”.
I am genuinely surprised. If it’s going to take too much effort, don’t bother hunting it down, since it will hardly prove anything either way, but I am surprised
Of course it isn’t.You can’t even get agreementon whther “The South” comprises 11, 12, 14 or 16 states. You could certainly define “The South” in precise geographic terms if you wished, but without that it has no scientific validity, or even universally accepted list of states for inclusion.
Assuming that this is a statutory region, then yes, It will defined as the area defined within a polygon made up of a series of co-ordinates. As such it is perfectly objective. If it’s an informal designation then, no.
Definitely not, unless you define the term very precisely. Worms include members of at least 15 different phyla, including vertebrates and arthropods. There’s no commonality at all between them, whether evolutionary, anatomical or physiological.
Definitely not, unless you define the term very precisely.
Definitely not, unless you define the term very precisely.
Definitely not, unless you define the term very precisely.
And it might not. But because it is entirely subjective, you can never know.
Once again, you can make that claim, but you can never establish that it is correct because you haven’t objectively defined what “The South” even means. You assume that it snows less in “The South”, but assumptions aren’t science. And you can guess that it snows less in The South, but guesswork isn’t science either.
Once again, you can make that claim, but you can never establish that it is correct because you haven’t even objectively defined what “The South” even means.
This isn’t some semantic quibble here. It is the very core of what science is. You can’t possibly falsify a claim like "it snows more in “The South” when you don’t even know what “The South” means. And if you can’t possibly falsify it, it can’t possibly have any scientific validity.
It doesn’t matter if you *think *you know what it means, or that you *believe *that I think it means the same thing. If you can’t tell me what it means so that I can replicate it, it has no scientific existence.
So you are saying the concept or races or subspecies, as debated in this thread basically has no rational framework? If that’s the case your position would make a bit more sense, as opposed to those who simply say it doesn’t apply to humans.
WTF? 
Gil lnever even uses the term “sub-Saharan African”. He refers to American Negroes an Blacks, but never once to sub-Saharan African.
More importantly, Gill says:
So, since you claim that Gill says sub-Saharan Africans are morphologically distinct, I will ask you to quote where he says that.
That’s gonna be hard since Gill states outright that there are no morphological traits traits or combination of morphological traits that are diagnostic of *any *race.
But I want to see you squirm away for your claim. 
No. Now cut the strawmen and answer the questions please.
What are the names of these morphologically different, geographically distinct groups of people that you say exist?
What are the morphological features that you can use to distinguish them?
Where does Gill refer to sub-Saharan Africans?
Where does Gill say that there is a combination of morphological traits that are diagnostic of a sub-Sharan African race?
You’ve made all these claims. Now I want to see your evidence that backs it up.
Apologies. I wasn’t being disingenuous. I thought you were annoyed at my reference to Eugenics not to my characterizations of those who believe in it.
It’s not a strawman. It’s a genuine question. Remember: “[t]he standard level for defining a subspecies is based on the ‘‘75% rule’’ (Amadon 1949, Mayr 1969). If you take the morphological features discussed by Gill you’ll see they tend to allow identification at well above 75% accuracy. So I’m not sure why you think it can’t apply for humans.
Also,
(O’Brien and Mayr, 1991. Bureaucratic Mischief: Recognizing Endangered Species and Subspecies.)”
Again - the craniofacial features outlined in figure 1 of Gill’s paper share a group of phylogenetically concordant phenotypic characters and share a unique natural history relative to other subdivisions of the species.
You keep referring to sub-saharan africans. I took it that Gill was referring to that group in his paper? In any case, here are some other papers discussing morphological differences allowing classification from sub-saharan groups and other populations.
(Irish (2011) “Afridonty: the “Sub-Saharan African Dental Complex” revisited.”
(Irish (1997). “Ancestral dental traits in recent Sub-Saharan Africans and the origins of modern humans”
Relethford (2009) tells us:
(Race and Global Patterns of Phenotypic Variation)
So you can’s answer the basic questions being put to you:
What are the names of these morphologically different, geographically distinct groups of people that you say exist?
What are the morphological features that you can use to distinguish them?
Where does Gill refer to sub-Saharan Africans?
Where does Gill say that there is a combination of morphological traits that are diagnostic of a sub-Saharan African race?
You’ve made all these claims. Now I want to see your evidence that backs it up.
You can try to introduce red herring all you like, and try to spam your posts with meaningless “references”, But it’s nit escaping anyone;s notice that you are not answering these questions in any way at all.
What’s wrong with the “95% confidence” criterion?
“Han Chinese teenagers” is not a race by anyone’s definition.
Discussed at 8:56pm above: “Saharan Africans, Caucasians, Pacific Islanders, Amerindians, and East Asians.” Also, previous thread on the biological definition of race.
He refers to blacks. Read from p301 on useful cranio-facial features to distinguish races.
You asked for morphological differences between these races/populations. I’ve provided you with some that allow correct classification to satisfy the sub-species criteria listed above. Here’s another: