Too early, no coffee. Usually I whine that “Words mean stuff.”
Only 99% of the time which, I’m told, is worthless.
Words don’t mean ideas, words are ideas! As the paranoid German bachelor philosopher Schmendrick pointed out in his authoritative treatise Das Watdifug, the word “duck” is imbued with the essential “thingness” of any given duck, or set of ducks. The objective criteria of “duckness” (i.e., feathers, walks, swims) are relevant only to the existential reality of the duck, since the duck does not speak English, and is incapable of grasping the term.
Glad I could clear that up for you.
You raise good points–putting things into groups is an inherently subjective exercise overall. It becomes objective only when the categories are defined down to the point that a computer could put anything into the right grmale
Let me come at the point of this thread from another angle. The “race is a myth” people seem to be saying that race is useless because it is not objective. But they fail to appreciate the point above, which is that putting things into groups is always subjective (and in this thread ive been specifically showing how putting humans into the groups “male” and “female” is subjective). The inherently subjective nature of putting things into groups does not mean that doing so is a useless exercise. It nah allow us to discover other features that members of each group have in common.
Except that race is entirely subjective, having no actual reality to support it, hence the term “myth”. Gender, sex, whateverness is not entirely subjective, in fact, it is only “subjective” in the most inclusive definition of the term, which you insist that we accept as the only valid definition.
Problem with that is, it just ain’t so.
You were spot-on until this part, which points out the difference between sex and race.
All proposed classifications based on race tell us little to nothing about other features members of the group have in common.
Very simple and obvious classifications based on sex tell us very much about other features that members of the group have in common.
Not biologically, it doesn’t. “Black people are inherently X” is a nonsense statement because people are not inherently black. That is the only point the “race is a myth” people have ever tried to make. You are free to define groups of people however you like, and “discover” whatever you like about the groups that you have defined. What you’ll be doing is sociology, though, not biology.
Meanwhile, “men are inherently X” makes biological sense because many many many human beings are in fact inherently objectively male, and they all have that fundamental characteristic in common. The fact that not every human being is objectively male does not mean that no human beings are objectively male, and the same with female. You’ve conceded this already, as Blake pointed out. People can inherently share the same sex in a way that they can’t inherently share race.
[QUOTE=andros]
Seriously people, please stop conflating “sex” and “gender.”
Words mean things, dammit.
[/QUOTE]
As much as I appreciate the ability to talk about gender as a social construct, this is a silly statement. Look gender up in the dictionary and what you’ll find is that it means sex. The fact that there’s a movement towards a distinction doesn’t mean that people are wrong when they use a word to mean what it’s always meant, and scolding them for using the word appropriately seems pretty counter-productive. Especially in this case, since “Words mean things” is exactly what somebody might say to argue the opposite of what you’re arguing.
You and others keep saying this. What is your support for this statement? How can you purport to say that we will never find anything that varies among people in ways that correlate withfheir race? Also, people that make this statement tend to reject studies that show such variations onthe basis that “race is a myth,” which shows the circular nature of the thinking here.
I didn’t know I was supposed to be discussing whether or not “race is a myth” is true. In fact, the OP specifically instructed me not to, but rather to take it as a given and discuss whether that implies that “sex is a myth” is also true.
I’m merely pointing out that even if we take it to be true that “race is a myth” it does not follow that all classification schemes are also a myth, even if they have some small segment for which they produce ambiguous or misleading results.
There’s no movement toward the distinction between biological sex and psychological gender, there is movement away from it.
But ok, fine. If you take umbrage at that, then how about we go with this:
“When we use ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ interchangably in this thread, without agreeing on a specific set of definitions, it allows us to talk past one another, which is foolish and unproductive.”
Specifically, folks like Baker are making clear and cogent points about biological sex as a quantifiable and useful marker in no way correlative with race. Others, primarily Rand Rover, are primarily concerned with the apparently arbitrary nature of the social constructs of gender roles and identities.
We’re using the same words to talk about two different (albeit related) things. I can’t necessarily agree that my sideline snarking is actively counter-productive. But arguing without defining terms sure as hell is.
-a-
Well, Rover, if race is not a myth, I’m sure you can show us some examples. Once we create the category “male”, we can confidently describe unambiguous traits that belong to 99% of the people we call males and at most 1% of the non-male population (i.e. if the criteria is XY chromosomes, we will get very very few false negative - males that don’t have XY - and very very few false positives - nonmales that do have XY).
So let’s generously set the bar lower than 99% - let’s say 80%. What trait, if any, appears in 80% of “whites” and less than 20% of non-whites?
Ok J, you can fail to support your claim if you want to. Blake and Jimmy Chitwood and others are right there with you, so at least you are not alone.
Wrong. I have been very clear in this thread that I am talking about what you are referring to as “sex” (aka biological gender).
Well, again, you aren’t thinking about this very well. We could also learn that there is some trait that varies along radial lines, that we can use a person’s race to predict where a person is likely to fall on a continuum with respect to such trait. The most researched trait I am aware of is IQ, which of course you and others od your ilk dismiss out of hand on thebasis that “race is a myth” (thus showing the circular nature of your conclusions).
Apologies. I meant Blake, of course.
Only doing what I’m told.
[QUOTE=OP]
We’ve all heard the latest fashion for proclaiming that “there’s no such thing as race,” “there’s no scientific definition of race,” “race is a myth,” and the like. This thread isn’t about any of those claims or about race at all.
[/QUOTE]
You should take it up with him.
The point is clear. Even if there is no useful categorization based on race it does not follow that there is no useful categorization based on sex. The two cases are not analogous because the levels of confidence in assigning members to the groups and the number and prevalence of common traits in the subset after assignment vary greatly in the two.
At least you’ve finally come to it. The entire purpose of the OP was not to address sex-based grouping at all, but rather to attempt to validate race-based IQ analysis by proxy.
Frankly, I don’t think you’ve made that very clear at all. But then, you’ve also seemed to be quite adamant in your dismissal of evidence that your comparisons of sex and rave are fundamentally flawed at best and laughable in the main, so yanno . . .
Great! Just give us a way to determine race biologically rather than socially and we’ll get right on that.
[QUOTE=Rand Rover]
Ok J, you can fail to support your claim if you want to. Blake and Jimmy Chitwood and others are right there with you, so at least you are not alone.
[/QUOTE]
Which claim? I didn’t know you were waiting for support; I thought you were just ignoring me.
No, you’re just not explaining your premise very well.
Ah, I have an “ilk”, now. Great.
Okay, I’ll be even more generous than just lowering the bar from 99% to 80%. I’ll accept a probability as a “trait”, for example:
A. Members of racial group X have a 60% chance of scoring above 100 on a standard IQ test.
B. Members of racial group Y have a 60% chance of scoring below 100 on a standard IQ test.
Is this what you had in mind? I have follow-up questions, of course, but I’ll wait to see if we’re on the same page up to this point.