I assume you are just kidding around, but I think Blake was getting at characteristics of individuals not groups.
Yes, there are. They don’t map to races.
No - no human group has been that isolated for long enough to be evolutionarily significant.
No, no human group has been isolated long enough in any one environment for it to be said to have a unique natural history. A few thousand years is not long enough for subspeciation.
No - not enough to be unique, anyway. Name one unique “heritable phenotypic difference” that maps onto race, please.
I’ve already cited where this claim is shown as bullshit for East Africans even if you only look at craniofacial metrics.
Yeah - clusters that don’t map to traditional races, and would be completely different clusters if you use other metrics: I mean, who thinks “European, Middle Eastern, and Central and South Asian populations” is one race? What phenotypic characteristics do they share other than the one being measured for clustering?
You realise populations evolve at different rates, right? That human generational times are way different from those of fruitflies and mice? And how that means human speciation times would be on the order of 10s of thousands of years.
What is your definition of race btw? If you’re talking about continental ancestry or “major geographic group identity” then yes they do.
How do you reconcile that with the above paper? Or Risch et al 2002?
Again, see Lahn & Ebenstein above:
They don’t have to be unique. They just have to have patterns of phenotypic difference that allow reasonably accurate classification.
I agree - you could divide those up into further races - that would still be consistent with the concept of biological race. Jerry Coyne acknowledges there is no fixed number:
Actually, I have found lists of over sixty “races,” and I am sure that we could invent more if we needed to make some different claim that one group or another should be denigrated or exalted.
In other words, the word “race” serves no real useful purpose other than to allow different people to make odd claims about ever-shifting collections of populations.
In the real world, of course, “race” is employed to make claims about the five, (Blumenbach), or three, (most twentieth century popular texts), “races” that are simply too broad to be meaningful.
It is simply a case of bait-and-switch. First you get someone to agree to accept the use of “race” as the label for any group of people in the world that might have some genetic connection, then you simply drop the “accepted” word into a conversation to identify much larger groups about whom nothing meaningful can be accurately stated, claiming that your audience has already acknowledged that there is such a thing as “race.”
As long as the word can have multiple meanings (or no meaning) in regards to large (and ever shifting) numbers of groups, I will have to conclude that its use is driven either by old guys clinging desperately to definitions they learned in their youth, (e.g., Mayr), or to people who have some need to find ways to make absurd claims about other people (e.g., Rushton).
(Ever notice how many people clamoring to use the word “race” have at least one “racial” group whom they want to demonstrate are inferior to the others?)
Um, no?
Bet you have noticed.
What is your view on its use in relation to other species?
What about those who look to protect indigenous races? Or in the US context, affirmative action. It would be strange to think someone could support that but not believe that those races exist.
Then there are those looking for bone marrow donors with similar racial background and pharmaceutical companies looking to develop drugs for different populations.
I see no reason to even be concverned about “indigenous races,” as though we were trying to save some sort of breeding stock. This is the sort of thing that might wind up promoting anti-miscegenation laws, again, in order to “preserve” such imaginary groups.
On the other hand, I have no problem with taking steps to protect cultures or societies that may be in danger as long as it permits the members of those societies and cultures to make their own free choices of association.
In both of your citations, you are simply resorting to the same fallacy for which I have called you out for several years: you are looking at North American societies, (or, as immigration increases, European societies), in which the people perceived as being of separate “races” actually originate from limited populations that are much smaller than any “races.” North American “blacks” are very much restricted to ancestors from the West Coast of Africa from Congo up to Senegal rather from any imagined “race” that came from the broad spectrum of people who lived south of the Sahara. Similarly, “Asians” (usually Chinese), are nearly all from the Southeast Coastal regions of China–a much more limited population than would be included in an imaginary “Asian race” of people from the North and West of China, Burmese, Siberians, Mongolians, etc.
Pretending that we need to identify “races,” when we actually need to identify a much larger body of limited populations is just silly. It would result in wasting time and effort to gather together samples that could more readily be typed according to the actual genetic content, that would then need to be further sorted into the discrete groups to which we can already assign them, now.
This, by the way, is disingenous to a fault. If some idiot thinks that we should discriminate against a person because they are “black,” then the laws to prevent such discrimination would protect people who were Aboriginal Australians, Fijians, Andaman Islanders, and anyone else who would tend to suffer discrimination because some bigot could not figure out that he was targeting the wrong group. (We already have had cases of discrimination and aggression against Chinese mistaken for Japanese, Sikhs confused for Arabs, and so forth. Supporting the concept of “biological race” makes it more likely that prejudice will be directed at people who are perceived to be of such races. Laws against “racial” prejudice are needed, now, because people have confused socially defined “races” with a non-existent biological reality.
I will also note that Affirmative Action actually is aimed at a rather different spectrum of peoples than a limited claim for “races,” including sex, religion, and national origin.
Using the logic you’re presenting then perhaps we should classify the various “races” based on their blood type.
After all, a “white” person who has O positive will be saved by a blood transfusion from an O positive “black” while a blood transfusion from a “white” person who wasn’t O positive would kill him.
Given that several posters on this board make it a point to pursue that “logic,” I would have to say that you seem rather unobservant.
Considering the fact that you’ve repeatedly complained about how people can’t refer to the pseudo-scientic studies which supposedly label black people intellectual inferior(wrapped in sheep’s clothing of course) without being labeled racist(or words to that effect), if the above post is truthful, then it is one of the stupidest posts on this thread even though it may be the only one you’ve put up not filled with spelling or grammatical errors.
You tell me, you are the one arguing that the scheme is not self-referential.
See above.
No, I would like you to actually read the fucking thread. The mistake I made was assuming that you had been keeping up with what was being posted. Clearly this isn;t the case.
For the very first post, I have been repeatedly stating that for a classification scheme to have any scientific merit it has to meet two criteria: it has to be objective, and it cannot be self-referential. I have said this about 20 time sin this thread. Apparently you managed to miss it.
You then presented me with a proposal for a scheme which it should have been obvious was not in any sense objective and asked me whether it met the basic criteria for scientific validity. I replied that no, it could not possibly do so unless you were bale to apply it objectively.
At no stage did I say that it was scientifically valid if you did solely that. I said that it had to meet that standard before it could even be considered. I will thank you to stop putting word in my mouth in future.
The WTF is your point with all this nonsense?
Once again, we have someone “Just Asking Questions”, without having the ability or the fortitude to actually explain what the hell point they are trying to make.
Final request" stop putting words into my mouth. I never made any such assertion,a s anyone who wants to read the thread can see.
In fact, to hell with it. To the pit with you.
And? Do you have an actual point here? Or are you "Just Asking questions?
Bullshit. I never raised the issue at all. Rand Rover raised the issue of the biological existence of race in his forts post. That nonsense was continued on by Chen and yourself. In no possible sense did I raise the issue.
Who ever made such a claim?
:rolleyes:
Do you still beat your wife? Please try to answer my question. A simple yes or no will do.
No, they don’t.
Call me when either of those papers gets any race classified as Homo sapiens other. Otherwise it’s so much bullshit. There’s only one extant subspecies of humans. Done and dusted.
50 000 years has not been long enough to cause subspeciation. At best, you can make a case for two human races on that basis, African and NotAfrican (Or NonNeanderthalDNABearing and NeanderthalDNABearing, if you prefer). But that’s as far as it goes, and even there, there isn’t enough phenotypic differentiation to mark the two groups as subspecies - e.g. the inability to readily distinguish Black Africans from Black Australoids.
So are you advocating a maximum of 2 human races?
How can they permit classification if the patterns aren’t unique.
And I notice you still are fucking unable to actually commit to any. NAME ONE!
“No fixed number” is completely inconsistent with the biological definition of race being discussed in this thread. “no fixed number” is exactly the same as the ad hoc population groups we’ve been saying do exist, and is NOT what is meant by e.g your precious Risch, who stops at 5 (extremely outdated) groupings.Are you seriously arguing “Finns” can be considered a subspecies of Homo sapiens?
Uh huh.
The largest nations on the continent of Asia are Russia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
So according to your scheme, Russians, Chinese, Indians, Kazakhis, Saudisand Indonesiansare all the same race?
Is that correct?
Or are you now going to move the goalposts once again, and tell use that, despite all those nationalities having the exact same continental ancestry, they are not the same race at all?
See, this is what Chen always does. He makes a claim that race = continental ancestry. Then when we point out how ridiculous it is to lump Vladimir Putin, Osama bin Laden. Mahatma Gandhi and Bruce Lee into the same race, he then squirms away and tells us that race isn’t “about continental ancestry” at all, it’s about some other manner of categorisation.
Or perhaps he will try the old favourite of claiming that only Chinese are “True Asians”, and that the rest don’t put sugar in their porridge. Errr, I mean the rest are transitional groups between “True Asians” and other races. Considering that those others, and people indistinguishable from them, occupy land that makes up ~75% of the continent, such a claim is amusing to say the least. Any scheme that fails to map onto 3/4 of the designated area is hardly reconcilable to the “geographically distinct” group" that Chen claims that these races are.
Lol, I already answered the question – there is nothing (as far as I can tell). Therefore, by your reasoning (as far as I understand it), “heavy smokers” is NOT a valid scientific category.
And yet you claim (or at least seem to imply), that “heavy smokers” IS a valid scientific category under some circumstances.
In other words, you have (apparently) contradicted yourself.
Same thing with “overweight people.” It fails to meet your 95/5 test.
You have (apparently) contradicted yourself again.
That nobody has been able to satisfactorily explain to me the standards for rejecting race as a classification scheme.
Lol, if I make a reasonable interpretation of your statements, then I am “putting words in your mouth.” If I ask questions to ascertain your position, then I am “Just Asking Questions.”
If you don’t understand my point, why not just ask me in a civil way?
If I have misunderstood you, then I need to ask some dreaded “questions” to figure out what your position is:
Assuming that they are defined precisely (as I have), are “heavy smokers” and “overweight people” valid scientific categories, given that they apparently fail your 95/5 test.
I think my point was reasonably clear. Do you disagree with it?
I stated that by your reasoning, a study which used racial categories would be just as per se invalid as one where “heavy smokers” was a category.
Do you disagree with this?
Sure you did, by asking where anyone had actually asserted that studies involving race were invalid. I myself had not made an assertion about absolute invalidity.
Anyway, I need to ask you another dreaded “question.” Assuming for the sake of argument that race is not a valid scientific category, does it follow that scientific studies which use race as categories are per se invalid? If not, does anything follow?
I don’t know. Do you make such a claim?
Lol, are you saying that my question contains an unfair presupposition? If so, what is it?
After 6 pages, you still don’t understand “all racial classification schemes are either self-referential or illogical”?
That being the case, there doesn’t seem to be much point in anybody discussing this with you. If you don’t understand that simple reason for rejection, which has been posted multiple times on all 6 pages, then there would not seem to be much hope that you ever will.
When you claim that I “asserted” something that is in direct contradiction to every post that I have made for 6 pages and seven days, that is not in any sense a reasonable interpretation.
Not even by your standards is that reasonable.
Do they meet the two simple criteria for scientific validity that have been explained multiple times on all six pages of this thread?
If so, then yes. If not, then no.
And if after 6 pages you still don’t understand what those criteria are, there is no point me expounding on them much further.
Since I have stated quite clearly that I have no freakin’ idea what your point is, there is obviously no point asking this question.
I agree that you made that statement. Is that what you are asking?
See, this is the problem with you and RR. You “just ask questions” rather than simply coming out and telling us what your freakin’ position is.
Once again, instead of simply telling is what assertions you *are *making, you play coy and tell us what assertions you didn’t make.
Dude, if you have an actual point to make here, come out and make it. Stop with the “just asking questions” and what I presume is some sort of lead up to a big “gotcha” and just tell us what freakin’ point you think you are making.
Of course not. Why would anybody in their right mind think that?
There have been perfectly valid studies done on whether wearing a red shirt prevents malaria or whether playing Halo affects performance on algebra tests. I can only assume that either you think that “red shirt wearers” and “Halo players” are biologically defined groups, or else you know very well what the answer to this question is and are trying for some kinda big “Gotcha”.
I don’t know. Why would you ask?
See, I can play coy as well. The only difference is that everybody knows what position I have adopted in this debate, whereas nobody has a fucking clue what point you think that you are making because you refer to actually tell us.
Yes, I don’t understand. Let me ask you this: If a classification scheme fails your 95/5 test, is it scientifically invalid?
My interpretation was completely reasonable. But why not just clarify yourself?
As I have defined “heavy smokers” and “overweight people,” are those categories scientifically invalid or not? Why or why not?
And do they or do they not? Simple question(s).
No, it is not what I am asking. Anyway, I have my own rules of debate. One rule is that you must answer reasonable questions so that I can understand your position.
I have asked you a few simple, reasonable questions so that I can understand your position. You have evaded them.
I will try one more time. If you evade again, then we are done.
- I assert that by your reasoning, a study which used racial categories would be just as per se invalid as one where “heavy smokers” was a category.
Do you agree with this or not?
-
If a classification scheme fails your 95/5 test, is it scientifically invalid?
-
Assuming it is precisely defined (as I have done), is “heavy smokers” a scientifically valid category?
-
Same question for “overweight people.”
I already made my point.
I’m not “just asking questions.” I’m trying to figure out what your position is.
In that case, what difference does it make if race is not scientifically valid?
I don’t know. Why would you ask?
I’ve made my point already. You are free to ask simple, reasonable questions in a civil manner if you wish clarification.
After 6 pages, you still don’t understand “all racial classification schemes are either self-referential or illogical”.
That being the case, there doesn’t seem to be much point in anybody discussing this with you. If you don’t understand that simple reason for rejection, which has been posted multiple times on all 6 pages, then there would not seem to be much hope that you ever will.