This is purely a matter of classification, making convenient pigeonholes. But as a matter of fact, modern cladistic systematics has largely abandoned this approach. There are no categories per se, but rather lines of descent to which particular fossils can be assigned. And this is objectively done on the basis of specific, defined morphological characteristics; the only subjectivity comes in which characteristics to assign the greatest importance.
This is a fundamentally different problem, because human populations are related not just vertically through time by descent, but horizontally in space because they interbreed and mix in more complex ways where they meet. And the basic issue is NOT subjectivity, as you seem to think, but that there is no objective basis for classification of humans into a small number of races. (It might be possible to classify to classify human populations on various multivariate axes, but we would end up with at least dozens and probably hundreds of clusters, with a large number of individuals that did not fit into any of them.)
Once again, if you think it is possible to define human races, you should be able to specify some actual criteria.
ok, so when all the “racists” will switch to bitching about “populations” instead of “races”, what will the anti-racist enlightened people do? Start decrying “populationism”? Or try to prove that “populations” don’t exist?
Trying to deny observations of reality by arguing against accepted and useful terms IMHO at this point is an exercise in kicking against the pricks. It may have been easier before the internet with media self-censorship and with everybody happy with the state of the world. But nowadays both the information blackout and the state of the world are rapidly breaking down. And the reality just cannot help but rear its ugly head.
Sorry, from a scientific point of view “race” is simply not a useful concept. It is not an “accepted and useful term,” and does not reflect the reality of human variation in any meaningful way.
It should be noted as well that subspecies concepts have changed considerably in recent years with the advent of cladistic taxonomy. Subspecies may still be recognized in cases in which isolated populations are morphologically distinct, or where previously isolated populations have come together and formed a comparatively narrow hybrid zone. However, today subspecies would never be recognized in any species of animal that showed the kind of geographic variation that humans do, that is, discordant clinal changes in characters. (That is, various morphological and genetic characters change gradually over very wide areas, and these characters are not closely correlated with one another, but instead vary independently through space.)
What has been shown in various studies of animals is that temperament is at least partly genetic. Dog breeding is just one demonstration of this.
If that’s what you were asking, the answer is yes, and in humans too. If you have two easygoing parents you are statistically more likely to be easygoing. If you have two short tempered parents you are statistically more likely to be short tempered. If you have two parents who tend to be melancholy your likelihood of a melancholy tendency rises. etc.
That does not make “races” have temperament tendencies though, because “races” are not really genetic entities of any sort. They’re culturally established categories of otherness, and the definitions of what “races” exist depend on what culture the definer is from I am not actually aware of any cultures that define races by primarily genetic factors, but such may exist. If there are such, they are not particularly likely to use genetic factors that affect temperament, because most cultures have such wide variation of temperament within the culture that there would be little success creating an otherness group specified by temperament. However, race concepts do tend to get tagged with stereotypical temperaments, in a way that has more to do with the culture’s own views of the temperament than of the group of others they imagine it applies to (“Angry Armenians” for example has more to do with cultural construction of anger than with Armenians as a “race”)…
Of course temperament is determined by our genes. Else, we’d have the same “temperament” as chimps or lizards. As for your example, though, “easy going” is as likely (or more) to be culturally/environmentally influenced as it is to be genetically influenced. We don’t have the knowledge or technology to prove your assertion, and so I wouldn’t state it as a fact. Your parents my be “easy going” because they were raised in a comfortable environment. If you’re not raised in one so comfortable, you might not be “easy going” regardless of your genetic make up.
It does sounds like a lot of acedemia has been thrown around on this thread. The fact that there is no such thing as human races, does not match the world I see every day, and it sounds bizarre to me. Even though there might be a problem defining it, most of us can see different phenotypes and often behavioral patterns that we attribute to this or that “race”.
But I freely admit, I’m far from an expert on race/biology, But it’s seems silly to pretend to not understand when the word “race” is used. I’m happy to use it in the colloquial sense.As most people do.
My question:
Clearly the concept of race is used in biology a lot. We divide most species into different races, Im particularly thinking of dogs as a good example.
Because the traditional racial groups, which are based on a few physical characteristics, do not correlate well with genetic profiles.
To take a simple example, Tiger Woods “looks” african to me. He is actually half asian, one quarter african american, one eighth native american and one eighth dutch.
That’s because you don’t travel the entire globe and see how variations blend one into another. And when you bring in “behavioral patters”, you are straying way outside the bounds of biology. Those are cultural attributes, not biological ones.
No one denies that race is invalid as a social construct, even if it doesn’t stand up to biological scrutiny. As I’ve said many times before, just because you can tell the difference between natives of Beijing and natives of Berlin, doesn’t mean that there is a line somewhere between the two cites with one race one side and another race on the other.
Good that you admit that.
I don’t think anyone is objecting to that.
Not really. Usually the term is “subspecies”, and it has a pretty rigorous definition. We don’t pass the subspecies test, and the reasons for that have already been posted in this thread.
No. All dogs are the same species and subspecies. As has already been noted, different breeds of dogs (these are not subspecies or races) are artificially constrained in their breeding patterns. H. sapiens is under no such constraints. We interbreed freely across all ethnic groups.
so how many Tiger Woods’s are there? Vs how many people who are actually 90-100% West African, look that way and act that way?
If Colibri says that we should use the term “population”, sure, why not. So we can go to West Africa and classify people into a couple of “populations”. Then we can see what the temperaments of these populations are like. And maybe compare that to the temperament of some far away population, let’s say the Finns, the Roma and the Ainu.
The Roma, btw, are not well-liked by their European neighbors. But for some strange reason I have never heard any insidious stereotypes of them being prone to disordered sex lives floating around. Maybe that’s because they are all too depressed from the discriminatory oppression they live under. Yeah, I blame poverty and ignorance.
Well, most of Central and South America isn’t much different. Not the same mixture as him, but the a similar amount of mixture from different places (African, European, Native American).
Well, why don’t you do that, get your paper published in a peer reviewed journal and get back to us with the results? I’m sure it’s a piece of cake to control for cultural and economic differences between West African populations and Finns.
are differences in testosterone levels between Africans and Finns, or between African Americans and their white neighbors, also culturally induced? Or do they have no effect whatsoever on “temperament”?
you must be joking. South America is populated by distinct stable endogamous groups such as “whites”, “Amerindians”, “mestizos”, “mulattos”. These groups often live in their separate regions as the overwhelming local majority, but in some cases the whites blend in with mestizos (see Mexico). Sometimes the regional conflicts between these regions lead to calls for secession of the wealthier whiter regions from the subsidized non-white ones.
So yeah, some of the above mentioned groups are indeed biracial. Does that negate existence of vast numbers of non biracial people both in South America and elsewhere?
First of all, there are going to be environmental factors that influence testosterone levels (not just genetic factors), but testosterone is one hormone (of many) that influence behavior in very complex ways. Not to mention the environmental factors that influence how hormones affect our behavior.
But look, if you don’t want to do the study yourself, sponsor a biologist to do it. But let’s not pretend that biologists are missing a golden opportunity to snag a Nobel Prize because they’re being bullied by some ill-defined PC cabal who is afraid of finding out differences between populations. There is very active effort to study in great detail the differences between human populations if for no other reason than to understand our evolutionary past.
so hormone stuff is complex, right? And after we are done untangling all that complexity do you expect to see a scientist running through the streets screaming “Eureka! I discovered that temperament differences between Africans and Finns are entirely cultural and environmental, including all the hormonal and other issues. And I have just grown a batch of Finns with hormone profiles like Africans by subjecting them to an appropriate cultural milieu!”
Or maybe you will concede that after all is said and done, genetics does play a role in the hormones which play a role in the temperament which play a role in the culture which in turn affects both the temperament and hormones in other interesting ways?
RE the evil PC cabal, where did I mention anything of the sort? I am aware of research being done on this issue, and sure enough this research is finding all those tidbits of info so inconvenient to the PC lies. Like, the higher levels of testosterone issue which do match up nicely with certain insidious stereotypes about behavior of people of African descent. Or, for that matter, the not so high testosterone levels in Japanese which also match up with insidious stereotypes about them.
The state of our scientific technology at present is such that discerning differences in temperament in different populations of humans would be impossible.
There are no differences in temperament between different populations of humans.
No one is making statement #2, but many of us are making statement #1.
statement #2 is not as unheard of as you seem to suppose. Neither are statements that the earth is flat.
Your statement #1 seems to be more of a claim about the meaning of the word “temperament” than about the state of our technology and knowledge is. If you define “temperament” in such a way that to get an answer we need to travel to Andromeda galaxy, then that statement will be 100% right. Or maybe you don’t even bother defining it and just say, no, regardless of what interesting statistical patterns in human behavior or neurobiology are discovered by your opponents, none of that is truly “temperament”.
Or, to get more realistic, let’s say you will accept measurements of “temperament” from people of your political clique (e.g. measurement of “temperament of evil white rednecks”) but you will not accept any claims about it from the political opposition. That’s not a very legit way to do science, but you can definitely use this strategy to support the inviolability of statement #1.
I am not actually aware of any cultures that define races by primarily genetic factors, but such may exist. If there are such, they are not particularly likely to use genetic factors that affect temperament, because most cultures have such wide variation of temperament within the culture that there would be little success creating an otherness group specified by temperament. However, race concepts do tend to get tagged with stereotypical temperaments, in a way that has more to do with the culture’s own views of the temperament than of the group of others they imagine it applies to (“Angry Armenians” for example has more to do with cultural construction of anger than with Armenians as a “race”)…
which do match up nicely with certain insidious stereotypes about behavior of people of African descent. Or, for that matter, the not so high testosterone levels in Japanese which also match up with insidious stereotypes about them.