So I hand out a survey to a bunch of people and said “do you have lyme disease” and also “what race are you black/white/latino/asian/other”, and get back some number of people who choose “asian”. That group is clearly not a rigorously defined one from biological terms, but (and this is to a certain extent the crux of the thread) it seems to me that it’s also not a group whose definition is 100% NON-biological. The group of people whose SSN’s are prime is clearly 100% non-biological. But the group who self-identiy as “asian” can (and I suspect, does) have some biological/genetic commonality, at least on average. I mean, it’s a little unclear what “not biological” means… but that’s the point of the thought exeriment with group A and group B.
“Asian” is clearly a “race” as generally defined, and “Asian American” presumably means “Asians living in America” (ignoring some corner cases such as tourists or visitors). The distinction between “Asian Americans” and, say, “African Americans” is a racial one (although not solely a racial one).
What do national boundaries have to do with anything? I strongly suspect that the answer is yes… pick a bunch of residents of East Timor (the geographical place) and a bunch of residents of Bosnia (the geographical place), and there will be similarities in DNA that allow imperfect prediction as to which of those a mystery person is a resident of. Honestly, I’m not sure what point you’re making.
Are you talking about testing on just the DNA? Or are you assuming that they get some blood samples to work on?
In any case, it wouldn’t shock me if there were some genes that would indicate a potenial propensity towards either cigarette smoking or marathon running… for marathon running in particular, a particular body type is likely best for marathon runners, so if you see genes for that body type, that increases the likelihood that that person is a marathon runner.
I would say that being a marathon runner (and possibly smoker, less clear) is not complete orthogonal to biology/genetics.
Do you think that “Maori” is not a race? That seems crazy. What else could it be? It’s obviously not a generally used term in the US as one encounters Maoris fairly rarely, but seems like it obviously is in New Zealand. If there’s someone in New Zealand who hates Maoris and claims they’re all lazy bums, that guy’s a racist. QED.
Well, that’s another sticking point. Becuase the proposition I’m arguing against is “race is totally meaningless biologically” then I win if there’s an vaguely reasonable definition of race that is in any way meaningful biologically. But it is, of course, hard to define.
You and John Mace and Gigobuster et al have really shown your true colors in this thread. You keep saying that me and Chen and Chief Pedant et al are using antiquated concepts, but this post (and similar ones by the others) shows that it is you guys who are using antiquated concepts.
All I’ve ever said is that humans can be categorized into different genetic clusters, and if someone wants to call (all or some of) those genetic clusters a “race,” then so be it. It doesn’t mean that person thinks one or more races is inherently and irredeemably inferior than any other.
You guys need to leave the past behind. Just because someone uses the word “race” doesn’t mean they want to enact Jim Crow laws or parade people into gas chambers. They may just want to perform studies on people and maybe learn something.
We can say it’s a bad thing to discriminate based on race without going full retard and claiming that “race doesn’t exist in biology” or any other such nonsense.
Well, yes, I do think I know what the answer would be. Obviously I think that yes, there would be differences.
So let’s take one of the less offensive biological racial generalizations people make, which is that there’s a biological basis for the fact that so many of the world’s fastest sprinters are “black”. Note: I am in no way claiming that I believe this to be true. However, I feel like a lot of people want to just dismiss any possibility of this being true as prima facie ridiculous because “black” is a race, and races have no biological meaning, ergo this statement must be false.
But if we accept (and I’m not saying we have to accept it, that’s why I proposed it as a thought experiment for discussion) the idea that the above thought experiment might in fact yield differences, then it seems very possible that there are certain very specific ethnic groups/populations who have genes which, on average, make them better sprinters. Assuming that was true, and assuming this ethnic group has a physical appearance that broadly falls into “black”, then what does that say about the claim that black people are better sprinters? Well, the vast majority of black people would in fact not have any of these genes, and would be no better or worse sprinters than anyone else. But among the small percentage of “black” people who in fact did have those genes, you would find better than average sprinters. And because the fastest sprinters at the Olympics will be the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop, a hugely disproportionate number of them will have inherited some of those genes, and will thus visually appear to be “black”.
Now clearly in this scenario it is not the most useful thing in the world to say “really fast sprinters are, biologically, likely to be black” when we could more precisely say “really fast sprinters are, biologically, likely to have ancestry in specific group x”, but that also doesn’t make the first statement false.
Tell you what, you then tell those “foolish” astronomers to bring back Pluto as a planet, if you can convince them to do that, then we can tell those “foolish” biologists to stop saying that there are no races as you want.
Very little, and I don’t think we should, and I certainly agree that the concept of race has done huge amounts of harm. BUT, that’s not the same as making blanket statements that race has absolutely zero biological meaning.
See MaxtheVool’s post right after yours–he refutes the above quite handily.
Well, you answered your own question. It may be useful in some ways. That’s it. There’s really no reason not to group people in whatever way may be useful to learn something about people. The only downside is that some people get their panties all in a twist about it because they assume that anyone who uses the word “race” must have some nefarious purpose.
You seem to think you are making a point. Unfortunately, you’ve failed miserably. Maybe it would help if you just said plainly whatever it is you think you said so cutely above.
But you realize that engaging in that thought experiment is not science, right? So it’s really not relevant to your OP.
Not quite. We also know that “blacks”, meaning people whose ancestors are from sub-Sahara Africa, have more genetic diversity than all the non-African populations combined. So, if you think there is an “Asian” race and a “Caucasian” race, then you should also think that there are many “black” races, not just one. Scientists would normally call these groups ethnic groups or “populations”.
So, the more likely explanation would be that these super-sprinters were from some subset of “blacks” (ie, Africans). Imagine if the best poll vaulters were from, for whatever reason, Turkey, but not from other areas of the Middle East, North Africa or Europe. Would you go around saying that “whites” are better poll vaulters?
I think that you are assuming that many here are thinking that it is nefarious, I only think first that it is just excusing ignorance. There are very good reasons why astronomers dropped Pluto as a planet, There are very good reasons why biologists and other scientists dropped race divisions among humans nowadays.
“*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 race”
-Robert M. Yohe II, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology (Ethnicity -Powerpoint-)
I’ve not mentioned Jim Crow laws or anything about racist policies in the past. I only called Chien’s quote antiquated because it explicitly said “This rule isn’t in common use today”.
Umm, nothing anone posts on the SDMB is ever really science. I was asking a question that I honest don’t know the answer to (honestly! I don’t! I have a guess but I readily admit it’s just that), then saying “here’s some logic that proceeds if the answer is yes”. If the answer is no, then my conclusion is obviously unsupported as argued. Do you believe you know the answer to my initial question?
Honestly, though, I feel like the burden of proof is to claim that my assumption is false, because it’s a pretty extraordinary claim to say that two populations (again, now, talking about “real” groups and populations, not races) who have distinct and measurable differences in a bunch of externally visible things have NO other differences. I mean, that might be true. It might be the case that whatever evolutionary pressures changed the hair and skin and height of group X absolutely positively did nothing else. But I feel like that claim needs some support or evidence.
Yes, it would clearly be more useful and precise to discuss various “black” “races”. But I addressed precisely that in my previous post that you responded to:
Probably not, but I might go around saying “the olympic pole vaulters at London 2012 are more likely to have light skin than very dark skin for reasons that are at least partially biological”.
Look at figure 2 and the major groupings identified - Africa, Eurasia (Europe, Middle East, and Central/South Asia), East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.
Yeah, I’m definitely thinking of some phrase like “anthropic creationists” or “left-wing creationism.” “A bunch of identical humans appeared 100k years ago, and NOTHING INTERESTING HAPPENED TO THEM SINCE!”
Google Scholar reports just 4 others citing him so far. I think someone said that science is indeed a contact sport, papers come and go, but what if counts in the end is if the paper is recognized by others as important, it is IMHO still a minority position and his expertise is in philosophy, not biology.
“*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”
I think the point is that indeed very interesting things have happened, but that cursed age of exploration meant that there was not enough time and space to separate us into races that can not interbreed or remain so similar at the biological level.
It is not clearly defined in geographical, morphological, political, social or historical terms either. Asian is a near meaningless term. You know that, which is why you steadfastly refuse to answer my simple question about which nationalities are considered part of your Asian race.
Then look at the following list of Asians and name a single biological trait that they all share. Note that these Asians were all selected simply because they are famous individuals of their national background and their genealogy able to be readily determined. They are also selected to be representative of the geographical extent of Asia. They are essentially a random sample, not in any way selected for being atypical.
Since you have just claimed that “Asian” absolutely, 100% has some biological definition, you are now being asked to demonstrate that. Tell us what biological commonality all these famous, randomly selected Asians share. Just one single biological trait that is common to them. And before you make comments on eye or hair colour, I invite you to look at Attaturk, Katter, Kazans and Tiffany and also invite you to note that >80% of humanity have brown eyes and black hair, so they are useless as racial classifications.
It is in fact random, which is quite different.
At this stage you need to explain what it is that you actually mean when you say that race is “biological”. Do you mean that it has a biological basis? That it has a biological manifestation? That it maps onto biological traits? Because you could mean any of those, and appear to mean all of them in different posts
Good, then you can tell us what the biological commonality of all those self-identified Asians that I just listed share.
It’s not just unclear, at this stage it is actually meaningless. You seem to be claiming that cycling and going to the cinema is biological.
I am going to echo the comments already made by John Mace. Your thought experiment seems to be predicated on already assuming the outcome. You want to be allowed assume that all Asians share some biological commonality, and then use that commonality to prove that they are a race.
I am calling shenanigans on that one. I do not believe that all the self-identified famous, random Asians that I selected possess any biological commonality whatsoever.
And I say again: I believe this is nonsense, and once again I ask you to provide a reference for your claim that “Asian” is or has been considered a race by any reputable source is the whole world. Simply claiming that something clearly is so is not sufficient for great debates.
All else aside, any “race” that includes >60% of humanity and encompasses Osama bin Laden, Kemal Attaturk, Mohandas Gandhi, Mao Tse Tung and Kamahl is pretty much worthless. Would you not agree?
The point I had hoped that you would take away is the fact that national boundaries are self-evidently subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological. If nationality correlates with your genetic methodology, how can the exact same methodological results be used to support the contention that race is not subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological?
I really do need to have your response to this issue.
Do you agree that national boundaries are subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological?
Do you agree that, using your methodology, we could get the same correlation between nationality and genetics as we get between race and genetics?
Do you agree that this establishes that your methodology will correlate to subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological factors as well as to biological factors?
The point is that “Bosnian” and “East Timorese” are subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological definitions imposed by humanity. We can demonstrate this readily by the fact that such groupings dd not exist 20 years ago, that the groupings came into existence through the stroke of a pen.
I assume that you accept that to be the case? That you accept that the boundaries of East Timor and Bosnia are arbitrarily drawn based upon cultural and political preconceptions, that they are not in any way objective. If you do not agree with this then please say so clearly. Then please explain how, if they are objective such boundaries failed to exist 20 years ago. Has subjective reality changed within my lifetime?
Since your methodology is demonstrably prone to confirming subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological groupings, it is useless as a method for determining whether a grouping is objective and biological. It is scientifically invalid by definition because it can be demonstrated to produce false positives using the very simplest control imaginable.
Science does not work through looking for facts to confirm your beliefs. Science works through an honest attempt to disprove your beliefs. Your belief is that race is non-subjective, non-cultural, non-plastic and biological. That is what you should be setting out to falsify. The simplest way to do that is to run the same test against a control group that is known to be subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological. National groupings, especially ones created recently, provide the perfect control group because we can readily prove that the grouping is subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological.
That is the point. Your thought experiment has been thought falsified.
Do you agree that, using your methodology, we could get the same correlation between nationality and genetics as we get between race and genetics?
Do you agree that this establishes that your methodology will correlate to subjective, cultural, plastic and non-biological factors as well as to biological factors?
Any biological test. That is why I said biological test. We are seeking to determine biological grouping here, not genetic.
Once again, the problem is that you have not defined what you mean by “biological grouping”. Please do so.
So you agree that smoking and ,marathon running can be determined via biological tests absent any cultural or historical data?
Good. So does that mean that cigarette smokers are a biological group on th4 same order that “Blacks” are a biological grouping?
If not why not?
I asked you for a reference for your claim that “Maori” is a race. I did not ask whether you thought it was crazy. Can you produce such a reference?
Maori is a an ethnicity or cultural group.
If you claim that Maori is a race, does that mean that Maori are a different race from the genetically and linguistically identical Tongans? If so why, and why are North Island Maori the same race as South Island Maori? If every island gets t be its own race, doesn’t this mean that you will have over 400 races in Polynesia alone? Is a population of <2 million people comprising over 400 races really what you mean by race? If so then how can you simultaneously claim that “Asian” is a race when “Asians” comprise over 50% of humanity and inhabit over 900 islands??
This really goes to the heart of the problem with your thesis. You keep talking about biological races, yet you are unable to define them or even use a consistent definition of race. In this thread alone you have claimed that “Asian” is a single race that inhabits over 900 islands and numbers over 3 billion souls, while simultaneously claiming that Maori is a race that occupies just 10 islands and numbers less than 1 million souls.
There is rather clearly no biological consistency in these racial groupings.
You say a lot of things are obvious, yet you are completely unable to provide references for them.
This is something that always seems to occur in race threads.
No. That was not your claim. Your claim as that there is such a thing as a biological racial group..
As you have already conceded, “cyclist” correlates well to biological tests against deliberately selected contrasting populations. That does not mean that “cyclist” is a biological racial group
It is in fact very easy to define once you accept that it is a purely cultural grouping.
Conversely it is impossible to define biologically. That is why you have been totally unable to define even a single racial group in this thread, despite being asked multiple times.
I have asked you several times to name a distinct racial group that shares any sort of biological commonality. And you have been unable to do so.
