# "Race doesn't exist" and affirmative action: Can't have cake and eat it too **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466 "2016-07-21T03:09:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466/141 "2016-08-23T03:34:58Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > “Race” is not “folk taxonomy.” > > That’s just politically correct blather, meant to reassure the masses that everyone has about the same odds of the same genes from some kind of equally-accessible gene pool. > > Which is silly. > > If you self-identify with a race, you self-identify with a population that has, on average, a markedly different odds for any given individual to have gene variants associated with a diferent “race.” > > Suppose you self-identified as “black.” Your odds of having the same amount of Neanderthal gene content as someone self-identifying as “white” are much smaller, and particularly so if you are a sub-saharan black v an American black. > > It’s just silly to keep pretending that race categories which reflect continental origin are nothing but a layman’s confusion of what “real science” is. What is really silly is to post virtually the same as the mistaken person writing to the American Scientist did. The article where that " Race is folk taxonomy, not science. " quote came from shows what real science is talking about. It is really lame to just repeat what was posted already thinking that repeating what an ignorant posted before to be impressive. The reply from [Dr. John Shea](http://www.americanscientist.org/authors/detail/john-j-shea) is there already to respond to the silliness that you posted. [http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2011/4/is-race-real](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2011/4/is-race-real) > [@](#): > > **An anthropologist who proposed using race as a serious way of describing human variability would be laughed out of the profession—not for reasons of political correctness, but because the idea displays a manifest ignorance of biology.** More than 60 years ago, M. F. Ashley Montagu demolished the concept of “race” in his book, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race (1945). Nevertheless, like many a bad idea, the notion persists that there is some useful purpose in classifying humanity into five, six or a dozen races. But it persists at the margins of anthropology, among popular-science books and in the nonscientific imagination. Living humans share too recent a common ancestor for there to be many deep-seated biological differences among us. From an evolutionary standpoint, we are all Africans. > > Race is folk taxonomy, not science. The variables used to organize it, such as skin color and hair texture, are arbitrary choices. A case can be made that the concept of discrete European, African, Asian and American races probably arose from the medieval theory that variation in human behavior reflected imbalances in the four (white, black, yellow and red) “humours.” A belief in discrete races might also have arisen from a shift from overland travel by caravan to the use of ocean-going watercraft in the 15th century A.D. Prior to this period, voyagers traveling overland and sailors making frequent landfalls would have observed gradual changes in the appearance of the people they encountered. With longer oceanic voyages and less frequent landfalls, differences appeared more stark, leading to categorical models of human variation, such as race. Tellingly, most racial classifications of humans postdate this innovation in marine transportation. Whatever their origins, racial classifications are not informed by prior knowledge or compelling evidence that these physical characteristics are biologically significant. > > Yes, there are geographic differences in human biology and, perhaps, in vulnerabilities to particular diseases. But seeing these differences as meaningfully organized around race is a distraction from the search for the actual social, economic and physiological causes of these diseases. As pointed many times before, “scientific” racists also have not much of a choice but to also deny that most scientists are talking about how race is folk taxonomy indeed. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466/142 "2016-08-23T12:01:44Z")
It always comes back to Africans vs everyone else. %Neanderthal is only a useful metric if the races you propose are “Sub-saharan African” vs “Everyone else”, which is not hella useful, especially given that one of those groups has way more internal genetic variability than the other (and it’s not the one most racists think). Yes, race is folk taxonomy. Quaint history, but outdated, scientifically useless and frankly embarrassing to still be believed. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466/143 "2016-08-30T22:45:37Z")
Peel away the carefully worded verbiage to disguise the real issue: “Race” does correlate with the odds that you will get a particular set of gene variants, driving an average maximum outcome for a particular skillset. We see differences in outcomes among groups divided by self-identified race because those self identified races reflect human migration patterns and evolution. And the result of that has been that some races are, on average, better than some other races at all sorts of skillsets. We don’t all get the same odds of getting good genes for a particular skillset, and even at so coarse a taxonomy as race, differences in average outcomes will emerge because of that fact. [Here’s an illustration.](http://www.postandcourier.com/storyimage/CP/20120805/PC20/120809493/AR/0/AR-120809493.jpg&maxw=800&q=90?ver=201208052221) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466/144 "2016-08-30T23:09:28Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > [Here’s an illustration.](http://www.postandcourier.com/storyimage/CP/20120805/PC20/120809493/AR/0/AR-120809493.jpg&maxw=800&q=90?ver=201208052221) What does this illustration demonstrate? Are you saying there is some sort of special gene in Jamaica that gives Jamaicans a greater likelihood of sprinting domination, while people who come from Africa or Europe or Asia have a lesser such likelihood? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466/145 "2016-08-31T01:12:12Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > > > [Here’s an illustration.](http://www.postandcourier.com/storyimage/CP/20120805/PC20/120809493/AR/0/AR-120809493.jpg&maxw=800&q=90?ver=201208052221) > > What does this illustration demonstrate? Are you saying there is some sort of special gene in Jamaica that gives Jamaicans a greater likelihood of sprinting domination, while people who come from Africa or Europe or Asia have a lesser such likelihood? Actually, that is a rather old bait-and-switch that I am surprised to find Chief Pedant using. The assumption that there is a “racial” trait being expressed in the sport of sprinting ignores the fact that the very fast sprinters are not descended from all the people identified as a particular “race.” One does not find the top sprinters coming from South Africa, Ethiopia, or even Angola. The very fast sprinters tend to have ancestors who lived near the West coast of Africa, generally north of the Equator… That does not meet any sort of biological definition of “race.” It may indicate a human population, but throwing the word “race” into the mix simply confuses the discussion by acting as though a small population is representative of a much larger population. It is similar to pointing to marathon runners to identify the same “race,” even though the victors in marathons come from a totally different region with no serious marathon champions coming from the same locations as the sprinters. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466/146 "2016-08-31T01:22:03Z")
It’s funny how no one ever speculates that white people must have special genes that confer swimming, rugby, beach volleyball, synchronized swimming, or rowing ability. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466/147 "2016-08-31T02:47:34Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It’s funny how no one ever speculates that white people must have special genes that confer swimming, rugby, beach volleyball, synchronized swimming, or rowing ability. Well, of COURSE we do. Our ancestors lived in England, where cheese was a major food. Those ancestors who could toss cheese wheels effectively to one another over English hedgerows were likelier to remain healthy and hale and to have children. Beach volleyball grew out of this pastoral necessity. Edit: Also: rowing? Vikings! Edit 2: Also: synchronized swimming? Escaping from Vikings! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-doesnt-exist-and-affirmative-action-cant-have-cake-and-eat-it-too/760466.md?page=7)