Why not in a biology setting? You haven’t addressed my comments earlier where I provided you with the biological definition of race. All you’ve said is that it’s disputed.
Groups or populations of humans can indeed be categorized on the basis of various sets of heritable traits. As I noted above - that’s why forensic anthropologists can identify a persons race from the skull and skeletal features.
And genetically, there are quite clear clusters that individuals fall into. Members from those races/clusters are more closely related to each other than they are to members of other races/clusters. The clustering of course is a natural consequence of geographical isolation, inheritance and natural selection operating over the last 50k years since humans left Africa. http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007
Also, it’s hardly a conspiracy theory to suggest that the term race is particularly loaded and people might prefer a term with less baggage like population.
It is an objective concept. It means something specific in biology (which is what this thread is about), and when you apply that biological term to the human species, we fail.
Now, you want to use the term in a lose way, so that it might mean many different things depending on the context. And that’s fine. That’s precisely what make it, as applied to humans in that way, a social construct rather than a biological one.
That does not exclude the reality that the consensus is that:
“*Race is a biological term used to describe subspecies of organisms.
*The physical variation in humans, though perhaps seemingly great, is genetically minimal.
*During the history of humanity, populations have never been isolated long enough to become true biological races”
Your conspiracy theory is that scientists are dropping the term just because it is a loaded term. That is not the case.
First off the question was not “Name two European subpopulations and the genetic test that you can use to separate them.”
The question was “Name two races and the genetic test that you can use to separate them.”
Secondly… did you even read your own reference? The authors are not talking about race.
Thirdly, nobody in this thread has disputed that it is trivially easy to separate small subpopulations on the basis of genetics. In fact the smaller the subpopulation the easier this becomes. That is precisely why references to subpopulations have no bearing on the ability to separate races.As I have already mentioned, this is by far the easiest with sub-populations of family size. But a family is not a race, nor is a “European subpopulation”.
The authors of that article note that their precision for even marginal significance is in fact national border + 700km. The precision for true significance is even tighter. Nobody in the history of the world has ever suggested that “Everyone within 700 km of France” is a race.
How’s *that *for “an analysis of the post and paper in question”? Pretty much demolishes your entire position while highlighting that you not only don’t understand the difference between race and subpopulation, you did not even read your own reference.
It is sad that you do not understand the difference between a subpopulation and a race. Nonetheless I ask you the question again, just to highlight the fact that you are unable to answer it:
We are **not **asking you to name two European subpopulations and the genetic test that you can use to separate them. We do not care about European sub populations.
Now can you answer the question or were you making it up when you said that you could do so?
Since the whole point of this thread has been to explore whether or not “there is such a thing,” the fact that you admit that you have not been talking about that indicates to me that you are either posting without any effort to understand the thread or you are trolling.
Either way, you need to stop this “talking at cross purposes” in which you have been engaged.
No, they can not at a racial scale. If you want to dispute this we will play a little game. You can list say your races and the “sets of heritable traits” that allow you to categorise them, then I will post a dozen or so pictures of people in each race, and you can then categorise them according to those traits. You will not get better than 90% accuracy, guaranteed.
Cite for this please. And I don’t mean anthropologists working with assumptions of underlying population, I mean any anthropologist who claims that she can identify any skull from anywhere in the world with no other information whatsoever.
Because this claim is bollocks.
Yes, and as your own reference notes “commonly used ethnic labels are … inaccurate representations of inferred genetic clusters” and “Hispanics…did not form a distinct subgroup, but clustered variously with the other groups” and “clusters identified by genotyping… are far more robust than those identified using geographic and ethnic labels” and “individuals cluster with other members of their **regional **group”
So according to your own reference such clusters do not correspond to race as used by anybody in the entire history of the planet. They produce clusters group people according to their geographical proximity, of course, but not with any correspondence to any racial scheme ever used by any human being in the history of the planet.
Such clusters group, for example, such classically Australoid people as theseKhmerin the same cluster as classically mongoloid Japanese. Meanwhile other classically Australoid people such as the AustralianAborigines are grouped with the Polynesians.
Well, since you have told us that these clusters are “races”, and since you have told us that races can be categorized on the basis of various sets of heritable traits, how about you do it for us. Tell us what sets of heritable traits you can use to separate those two women from the Pacific Islander Aboriginal race form the two women of the East Asian Khmer race?
And you still haven’t answered my earlier question:
Are you are seriously arguing that somebody can be biologically french?
Not even remotely. My argument (at least this particular part of it) is as follows.
(1) Different populations clearly have different characteristics when it comes to various external things like skin color, hair, eyes, etc
(2) Therefore I suspect they also have different characteristics in other things (and I asked if anyone knew for certain how true this is… people have snidely responded that I’m making an assumption here, which is true, but no one has actually either disagreed or provided evidence otherwise)
(3) Therefore it is entirely possible that one or more populations might be disproportionally likely to produce (for example) world class sprinters
(4) Most populations are sufficiently physically similar that their members would tend to fall into the same “race”
(5) Therefore, even if a particular race is made up of multiple populations, even populations that are in fact very dissimilar biologically, it is possible for there to be a disproportionate representation of a particular “race” among top sprinters, for biological reasons
(6) So if in fact you think it’s NOT due to anything biological that so many of the world’s top sprinters are “black”, I think there’s a burden of proof on you to explain why that might be. Which in fact you might be able to do. The point I’m trying to make, however, is that I think “well, ‘black’ is a race, and race has no biological meaning, therefore your claim that there’s something biological to so many top sprinters being ‘black’ is false” is at best oversimplified.
Obviously there’s a ton of gaps there because I’m not claiming I can prove anything. I’m simply claiming that “there are biological reasons why so many top sprinters are black” can not instantly be laughed out of court and dismissed as false due to the fact that it contains both the word “biological” and the word “race”.
There are gray areas. As I said earlier, classifying people by the last digit of their SSN is utterly and completely unrelated to biology. Classifying people by really precise genetic studies of their heritage and of what population they descend from is clearly directly related to biology. It is far more precise than classifying according to “race”, and would generally be more accurate and useful for any purpose that one might also wish to use “race” for. It also generally avoids centuries of baggage and bigotry. But none of that means that “race” is completely 100% UNrelated to biology in the same way that SSNs are. Go back to the very first post in this thread to see precisely what I mean.
And remember, I’m not arguing FOR just about anything at all… certainly not that scientists should start using “negro” and “oriental” as labels for people or anything along those lines at all. I’m just arguing that “race” is not 100% devoid of any correlation with anything at all biological.
Actually the title of the thread is unfortunately misleading, at least as far as my intent as the OP is concerned. A better title would be: “Race is 100% biologically meaningless – I claim that statement is overbroad”.
You are joking I hope. This study does not in any way claim that it is able to genetically separate out an east Asian race from the global human population. Nowhere does it ever make such a claim. You are gratuitously misrepresenting the reference. The authors state quite plainly that the study only pertains to “major ethnic groups living in the United States” and note that “this is not surprising… since [there is] enough genetic differentiation between these groups to produce robust clustering”
1, 400 people from two countries Everybody was either Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, Negro or European. Nobody at all from the nations bordering China and Japan. No Mongolians. No Indochinese. No Russians. No Tibetans. No Indians. No Koreans.
Since you claim that this test will allow you to separate out “east Asians” from “Indics” and “Australoids” and “Asian Russians” please demonstrate how. Because I am calling you out. I claim that you are deliberately misrepresenting your reference and posting in bad faith. I claim that that paper does not at any stage claim or imply that there exists a genetic test that will separate an “East Asian” race out of the entire human population.
If you are unable to quote where that paper makes a claim of a genetic test that will separate an “East Asian” race out of the entire human population then we will know you for exactly what you are: an unreliable, disingenuous poster who misrepresents sources either out of dishonesty or an inability to comprehend the science.
Max, while I know that you are reading the thread, can you please answer my questions?
Specifically I would like you to tell me which nationalities comprise your “Asian” race, and why.
This is the third time I have asked you this question, and you seem to be unable orr unwilling to answer it, despite the fact that you have repeatedly claimed that such as Asian race is self evident.
There are numerous other questions that you have also not addressed. If you wish people to take the time to respond to you, you must demonstrate that you are poisting in good faith. Ignoring repeated calls for clarification is not indicative of such.
You could also play a game where you walk down the street and notice people of with substantially east asian, european or african racial ancestry. I bet you’ll do just fine.
I said looking at the skull and skeletal features. Just as our definition of race from biology online suggests, you look for a heritable set of traits.
Ousley S et al (2009) Understanding race and human variation: why forensic anthropologists are good at
identifying race. Am J Phys Anthropol 139:68–76
Konigsberg LW et al (2009) Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology: sex and race. Am J Phys Anthropol 139:77–90
Did you read the 2005 paper? The genetic clusters correspond almost perfectly with peoples own self identified race/ethnicity. Yes, hispanics included.
Anyway, I have to go to play some sport. I’ll respond to your comments further tomorrow.
First of all, please dial down the condescension and hostility. Thanks. There are in fact a bunch of questions you’ve asked which I have no answer to. I absolutely admit that I can’t tell you a single certain biological or genetic trait that links all people considered “Asian”. I’m not sure if anyone can. I have never claimed that such a thing exists. And frankly I don’t think you’re really responding to the claims or the points I’m trying to make. So I’m going to start over fresh one more time and try to discuss things from the ground up, which does in fact mean ignoring some the questions you asked in your last post. Many of them in fact I can not answer, as mentioned earlier, and some are just way off the thread of the relevant discussion. If there are any that you really want me to answer, I will do my best if you ask again (politely), but please try to consider the actual argument I’m making here.
(1) We all agree (I think) that there are many populations of humanity (FAR more than there are generally thought of being ‘races’). They tend to share a common geographical origin, and they members of these groups share both genetic and morphological (assuming that word means what I think it means) traits. There is no way to precisely count or enumerate them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
(2) That said, plenty of people fall into gray areas between these groups due to interbreeding. Other people are members of these groups by descent but just don’t look much like their parents and relatives.
(3) “Races” are groups of these populations, and groups of individuals, all lumped together, usually due to vaguely arbitrary physical traits, most commonly (historically) skin color
(4) Members of the same population will USUALLY, although not ALWAYS, end up in the same perceived “race”. (And this is probably way more true for some populations than others… I’m sure there are populations 99% of whose members would be classified as “white” and others whose members vary far more greatly.)
(And yes, “usually” is a weasel word, but it’s basically just statistics. If you pick someone at ranodm from a randomly chosen population anywhere in the world, and pick another random person from that population, then have random Americans give their best guess as to their race, there will be a correlation far greater than chance between the answers you get.)
There are two interesting questions from here:
(A) If one agrees with me up until now, then races are made up at least partly of groups of people from the same population. And the populations themselves have a biological meaning. So does this all by itself is arguably enough to give the race biological meaning. It certainly means the race isn’t purely orthogonal to biology the way SSNs are. If in fact a single population shares some fairly unique biological trait, and that population is part of a single race, then there is a biological correlation between that race and that trait… even though it’s only because of a definable subset of that race. If I’m given a list of 1000 words, then group them into 26 groups based on their starting letter, then randomly lump those 26 groups into 6 groups with no rhyme or reason, I have not alphabetized the words. But neither are my groupings totally unrelated to the alphabet.
(B) The other interesting question is whether the grouping of populations into races is itself completely orthogonal to biology. For the “traditional” Western races, it’s clearly motivated by a small number of superficial traits (particularly skin color) and by historical and cultural considerations. And there are plenty of examples of populations within the same race that are in fact not particularly genetically similar. But again there’s a statistics question… if we pick some definition of the traditional “classical” races, 7 or 8 of them or whatever, and assign as many of the world populations as we can to those 7 or 8 races, and then use genetic analysis to see how closely related the populations we’ve assigned to the same race are, will the results be statistically better than chance? Certainly sorting by traditional race will be far from perfect, assuming “perfect” is the most genetically accurate and meaningful groupings possible based on actual historical migrations and so forth. But will it do a better job than just eeny meeny miney moeing them?
Reasonable question. As I’ve attempted to explain, I’m mainly disagreeing with the claim that race is 100% biologically meaningless. So I’m trying to come up with ways of looking at things where there is a connection between race and biology, as I was doing above. That’s all the claim I’m making, not that biologists in everyday life should suddenly start using traditionally-defined races in their research (which they shoudn’t), or that I can objectively define one or more races in purely biological terms (which I can’t), or that anyone can prove that the traditional 7 or 8 races are the most accurate way to sort people into large groups biologically (which they’re not) – but that the race of a person, while clearly largely a product of history and culture, is not always 100% totally and completely unrelated to any fact about that person’s biology/genetics.
I’m not sure what you mean by “reputable source” here, since you could easily argue that no reputable source recognizes the concept of race at all. But are you seriously claiming that in traditional American/Western categorizations, “Asian” is in fact NOT (in some contexts) a word used to describe a race? (Ie, not meaning “someone who lives in or comes from Asia”, but meaning “the more polite version of Oriental”)? Honestly, that seems like such an outlandishly bizarre claim that I want to be 100% sure I know exactly what you mean before I respond to it.
I honestly don’t think we disagree about anything here. If a particular island’s are a reasonably-genetically-distinct population, that population (which may or may not be one that would be viewed as being part of a particular race) is the population from that island. If that island then is colonized, then that population is the population from that island, who are subjects of some empire. If that island then wins independence, then the inhabitants of that island are still members of the same population they always have been (well, modulo interbreeding with the colonizers) and are also now the national population of a nation state. So in the last case, for that particular population and nationality, there’s a very strong correlation between a genetic/biological population and a nationality. Which doesn’t mean there always is.
Sometimes there is a strong correlation between a single population and a nationality. Sometimes multiple populations make up a nationality. Sometimes parts of multiple populations do, sometimes there’s almost no connection.
Obviously I was busy typing while you were typing, but I will answer as best I can, and the answer is… I do not have a precise and comprehensive answer, and never claimed I did.
I know that when I walk down the street there are lots of people I look at and say “that person clearly does not look Asian” and some people I look at and say “that person clearly looks Asian” and some people where I’m not sure. I could then ask each of those people what country their great grandparents were born in (or some such question to get a “national origin”), and count them all up. If I did that, I’d end up with a bunch of countries, each with a score indicating how “Asian” looking I thought its inhabitants were. I’ll happily speculate some if you like (China and Japan would be near the top of list, Ireland and the Ivory Coast near the bottom), or I can go to this page here and sort the average female faces, but what’s that going to prove? Certainly I can not, and never claimed I could, list a certain fixed number of countries such that all inhabitants of those countries (even correcting for recent immigration) are Asian and all inhabitants of other countries are not.
Once again, I challenge you to play the game. I will post a dozen pictures of people. Some will be east Asian, some will not. You note which ones have substantially east Asian ancestry.
Since you believe that you will do just fine at this game, why won’t you take me up on it?
Well we now have incontrovertible evidence that Chen is either posting dishonestly or is unable to understand the reference that he himself posts.
Chen has just claimed that those papers show that anthropologists working with no assumptions of underlying population identify race from skeltal remains. Then we read the papers:
Ousley states quite clearly that he can only separate “American whites and blacks” due to the limited number of racial types with the American population. He goes on to note that that he finds"differences among groups within continents" and that “if biological races are defined by uniqueness, then there are a very large number of biological races that can be defined, contradicting the classic biological race concept of physical anthropology.”
So far from Ousley being a reference that supports the idea that anthropologists can identify race from skeletal remains Ousley says exactly the opposite: that skeletal remains can not be assigned to any existing racial groups.
Konigsberg notes that anthropolgists are *only *able to identify race through skeletal remains if they use make use of underlying population data. They stress repeatedly the “extreme importance of an informative prior in any forensic investigation” and notes that racial identification hinges on “how to use prior information both in estimation and in the presentation of evidence application” .
Konigsberg et al concentrate heavily on one sample, known as “Mr. Johnson.” They note that they were only able to idnetify Mr Johnson after rejecting the most likely racial groupings based upon the physical evidece: “Knowing this, is it reasonable to assume that the remains are as likely to be from a descendant of 26th–30th Dynasty Egyptians or Easter Islanders (both samples are contained within the Howells’ data) as from relatively recent Americans? We argue here for using the 2000 US census data.” “The analysis… does not take into account the fact that the skull was found in eastern Iowa and is therefore unlikely to be that of an Easter Islander, or the descendant of Easter Islanders.”
So the two references that Chen provided say exactly the opposite of what he claims. Both references note that skeletal remains do not correlate well to any known racial groupings, and that anthropolgists can only possibly assign a race to skeletal remains by making use of prior knowledge of the regional population.
Just to show how ridiculous Chen’s claims are, Mr Johnson was a white man from Iowa. According to the skeletal remains his most likely racial groupings were, in order, Easter Island Polynesian, Ancient Egyptian and Japanese . That’s pretty hilarious considering that Chen tried to use this paper to support the claim that anthropolgists can assign race based solely on skeletal remains. Por mister Johnson was Polynesian, African and East Asian based on his skeletal remains.
So I think that I have proven conclusively that Chen is either totally unable to understand what his own references say, or that he is deliberately and dishonestly misrepresenting them in the hopes that nobody will bother to read them.
No, once again you have totally misrepresented the article.
But I have had enough of playing this game. You have proven three times now that that you are either totally unable to understand what your own references say, or are is deliberately and dishonestly misrepresenting them.
I have no interest in debunking every disingenuous, bad faith usage of a citation that you make. I will leave others to decide on your personal honesty and credibility when it comes to references.
From now on I will respond only when you use direct quotes from articles.
When you simply claim that an article says something the default assumption will be that you are misrepresenting it, as you have now been conclusively proven to have done four time.
If you start misrepresenting quotations I shall once again prove that you are doing so and then simply post a reference to this post for the enlightenment of other posters. That way everyone can see for yourself the way that you disingenuously misrepresent references. That will give them all the information they need to judge your trustworthiness and honesty.
Heh, except that the definition of “uniqueness” or purity is a complete strawman (as discussed previously). Go back and read the biology online definition above and you’ll see Ousley & Konigsberg’s findings in fact support the existence of biological races/populations.
Ousley finds shows there is a success rate of 80% in distinguishing between American Whites and Blacks, using just two variables. With seven variables, however, it reached the reliability of 95%, and with 19 variables the probability of correct classification rose to 97%. Also, you didn’t mention this:
Konigsberg et al noted that it is sufficient to use as few as 13 characteristics to have the posterior probability of the correct classification attain the value of 99%.
Then you should have asked for the title to have been changed a long time ago. If the OP is not even going to say what you mean, it is going to go nowhere and cause a lot of confusion and anger.
You let it sit this long, if you want thqt different discussion, open a different thread.
