They are repeatable. No matter what genetic markers you choose: SNPs, STRs, no matter how you choose them: randomly or based on their “informativeness”, it is relatively easy to classify DNA into the correct continental origin. The emergent pattern of variation is not at all subjectively constructed: it does not deal specifically with visible traits (randomly chosen markers could influence any trait, or none at all), nor does it privilege markers exhibiting large population differences.
The Konisberg paper is from 2009! Socially constructed race is correlated with physical characteristics. Rather than being separated from biology, the social phenomenon of race is rooted in biology.
These kind of disclaimers are somewhat Orwellian. It’s important to avoid controversy for funding purposes (as Cavalli-Sforza found with his diversity project).
GIGO, do you think you could at least try and read the Sesardic article? Please? It addresses the whole euphemistic use of population/race issue.
You get close but miss hitting the mark; basically ‘the races’ are not based on biology, but sociology (randomly chosen physical morphology -like eye shape, hair form, skin colour- and cultural factors -like social status, language, geography).
What’s ultimately silly is your insistence that these sociologically based categories somehow hold genetic predictive power for other randomly chosen (and as of yet unnamed) traits that may/may not even exist. I’m interested… what genetic traits do you think fall within those ‘races’ of yours?
Go back and read the discussion about natural sciences. Obviously if you observe a phenomenon and label it there is a social or subjective element to it.
And yes, these do have predictive power in terms of the physical characteristics you identify. Otherwise forensic anthropologists would have no success in identifying someones race.
That’s exactly it. No on denies that different populations of humans exist. But what you are claiming is that there are essentially “pure” cultures out there. Cultures that can be chopped up in some objective way and that are not influenced by other cultures.
Then you haven’t read the Sesardic paper, or my comments above that these are not discrete, fixed groups. I think a lot of the disagreement stems from this idea that races are “pure” vs the biological reality which involves fuzzy groups of statistical samples. It’s not neat or clean.
Is there such an astronomical thing as a “planet”?
Here’s a quote from the wikipedia entry on Pluto:
So, a “planet” is a category of objects with subjective criteria. I guess John Mace and orcenio et al would say “the concept of a planet is not scientific, it’s only a social construct. Therefore, scientists can’t study planets.”
Def 1 is exactly what we are talking about when we say that 'race is sociological.
Def 2 doesn’t even describe the groups you call “the races” (definitely not “blacks”).
Def 3 doesn’t even describe the groups you call “the races” (definitely not “blacks”).
Def 4 doesn’t even describe the groups you call “the races” (definitely not “blacks”).
The groups you imply (you never try to name/delimit them) are “the races” are too large and diverse to be “a population of interbreeding species,” a “tribe or family of people sharing a common breed or lineage,” “descent from a common heritage, ancestor, breed or stock.”
They all fall under Def 1 which has been debunked as an 18 century determined social identity, not predictive for anything other then what you use to delimit those groups.
As I said in my first post in this thread, the really sad thing here is that you guys are letting the idiots hijack the discussion. Just because some idiots think that people of different races are inherently inferior or superior to each other doesn’t mean that you have to throw out the whole concept of race. You can just say that the idiots are idiots and still use race for other reasons where it proves useful (if any).
Clearly all humans can interbreed. No one has claimed otherwise. At the same time, in the year 1400, Australian aborignes were a distinct race/genetic group/population/subspecies from, say, inhabitants of Tierra Del Fuego. Which is in no way a value judgment…
That is missing the point, for… I still wonder why it was needed to miss it. The fact is that in the past the concepts of race were way off base, likewise naming Pluto a planet was really a mistake as evidence piled up that it was not.
So if we’re studying finches on the Galapagos, and two populations get separated onto distinct islands, and after some period of time one population is a distinctly different color and a slightly different size, we shouldn’t study that or care or notice in case a land bridge pops up and they start interbreeding again? That seems like an odd approach.
But I honestly keep feeling that people in this thread are arguing so passionately because they know that the position I’m arguing for, that “Races have absolutely zero meaning, biologically” is false, is one that racists want to be true… and that therefore opposing it is like opposing racism. Which is a poor reason to take a position. Certainly I don’t believe I’m motivated by racism even in the slightest…
