# Race: Yea or nay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 14, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699 "2010-09-14T05:21:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/201 "2010-09-23T10:17:05Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > > [@Chen019](#): > > > > I’ve already posted some papers where in fact this is done & individuals tend to cluster genetically with others of the same ancestral geographic origins. > > You don’t say. You mean to tell us that people who are geographically proximate are also genetically similar? Who would have ever thought that! > > Nice debunking of something that no one posting here has asserted to be true. > > “Clustering” has nothing to do with genetic isolation. It does actually. > [@](#): > > From an evolutionary point of view, population stratification (genetically distinct subgrouping) and admixture (intermating between genetically distinct groups) are created by human mating patterns. **Geographical, social, and cultural barriers have given rise to reproductively isolated human populations, within which random drift has produced genetic differentiation.** Numerous recent studies using a variety of genetic markers have shown that, for example, individuals sampled worldwide fall into clusters that roughly correspond to continental lines, as well as to the commonly used self-identifying racial groups: Africans, European/West Asians, East Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans (Bowcock et al. 1994; Calafell et al. 1998; Rosenberg et al. 2002). [Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies - PMC](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/) > [@](#): > > **Blake** wrote > > So Chen, it seems you are utterly incapable of answeringmy questions. Blake, As I noted above (12:59am), the existence of mixed groups doesn’t mean that races don’t exist. Central Asia, East Africa, or Latin America where traditional physical anthropology has believed that intermixture of races has created mixed-race populations, genetics has invariably shown the hybridity of these populations. Risch makes the point here: > [@](#): > > By contrast, Pacific Islanders are those with indigenous ancestry from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Micronesia, as well as other Pacific Island groups further east. Native Americans are those that have indigenous ancestry in North and South America. Populations that exist at the boundaries of these continental divisions are sometimes the most difficult to categorize simply. For example, east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians [5]. The existence of such intermediate groups should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level. [http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) Also, see Rosenberg’s 2006 paper on Clusters & Clines. > [@](#): > > Thus, analysis of the 993-locus dataset corroborates our earlier results: if enough markers are used with a sufficiently large worldwide sample, individuals can be partitioned into genetic clusters that match major geographic subdivisions of the globe, with some individuals from intermediate geographic locations having mixed membership in the clusters that correspond to neighboring regions. [PLOS Genetics](http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010070) ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/202 "2010-09-23T10:27:27Z")
So you really can’t answer the questions. Your definition of race requires the races to be reproductively isolated and genetically distinct. You claimed that such reproductively isolated and genetically distinct populations exist. And yet when pressed you are forced to admit that the populations are neither reproductively isolated nor genetically distinct. So you have been forced to admit that by your own definition races do not exist. Way to debunk your own position ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/203 "2010-09-23T15:15:12Z")
One of my old Anthropology teachers insisted there was only one race, the human race, and everything else was just a subtle variation thereof. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/204 "2010-09-23T16:06:30Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > One of my old Anthropology teachers insisted there was only one race, the human race, and everything else was just a subtle variation thereof. That’s cute, but not really scientifically useful. “Subtle” is subjective, and there is no reason why two subspecies couldn’t be defined by “subtle” differences as long they were genetically isolated, and morphologically distinct. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/205 "2010-09-23T16:26:10Z")
I’m glad you think it was cute. He also put it in his Human Variations textbook that he wrote. He would be pleased you like it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/206 "2010-09-23T16:34:50Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I’m glad you think it was cute. He also put it in his Human Variations textbook that he wrote. He would be pleased you like it. I hope you didn’t take that personally, as it was not meant to be. But it really is, as I said, not informative, scientifically. Not that it would be first such thing like that in a text book, especially about a subject as touchy as race. At any rate, I’m sure you’re not implying that anything in a text book is unassailable. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/207 "2010-09-24T00:44:19Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > So you really can’t answer the questions. > > Your definition of race requires the races to be reproductively isolated and genetically distinct. You claimed that such reproductively isolated and genetically distinct populations exist. > > And yet when pressed you are forced to admit that the populations are neither reproductively isolated nor genetically distinct. As humans have migrated from africa and are the same species, obviously you don’t have complete isolation (see the Sesardic article above in respect of these strawmen arguments). However, you do get clustering along continental lines (which reflect the findings of traditional physical anthropology) which is a natural consequence of geographical isolation, inheritance and natural selection operating over the last 50k years since humans left Africa. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/208 "2010-09-24T13:11:35Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > As humans have migrated from africa and are the same species, obviously you don’t have complete isolation (see the Sesardic article above in respect of these strawmen arguments). However, you do get clustering along continental lines (which reflect the findings of traditional physical anthropology) which is a natural consequence of geographical isolation, inheritance and natural selection operating over the last 50k years since humans left Africa. Indeed, organisms including humans are more likely to breed with their closer neighbors than with their most distant neighbors. This is neither radical nor surprising. However, since this is not “complete isolation” and since it is impossible to tell which continent may be the origin of any individual human by morphological features alone (see multiple examples upthread), your much vaunted “clusters” are neither races nor subspecies. Your cite disproves, rather than proves, your thesis. There _is but a single_ extant race of humans. Ready to concede the point yet? \*(And once again \*\*Blake \*_beat me to it! \)_ ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/209 "2010-09-26T02:07:54Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > > [@Chen019](#): > > > > As humans have migrated from africa and are the same species, obviously you don’t have complete isolation (see the Sesardic article above in respect of these strawmen arguments). However, you do get clustering along continental lines (which reflect the findings of traditional physical anthropology) which is a natural consequence of geographical isolation, inheritance and natural selection operating over the last 50k years since humans left Africa. > > Indeed, organisms including humans are more likely to breed with their closer neighbors than with their most distant neighbors. This is neither radical nor surprising. However, since this is not “complete isolation” and since it is impossible to tell which continent may be the origin of any individual human by morphological features alone (see multiple examples upthread), your much vaunted “clusters” are neither races nor subspecies. Your cite disproves, rather than proves, your thesis. There _is but a single_ extant race of humans. > > Ready to concede the point yet?\* You keep referring to complete isolation. As I’ve said above, races aren’t different species. In terms of morphological features, your comment about it being impossible to identify someones race is plainly incorrect. > [@](#): > > Also, estimating generally the reliability of attributing a given data point to one of the five racial categories, another team of experts calculated that under some realistic conditions it is sufficient to use as few as 13 characteristics to have the posterior probability of the correct classification attain the value of 99% (Konigsberg et al. 2009). [http://www.ln.edu.hk/philoso/staff/sesardic/getfile.php?file=Race.pdf](http://www.ln.edu.hk/philoso/staff/sesardic/getfile.php?file=Race.pdf) Again, you seem to think that the existence of mixed groups means that there are no races at all. As noted above, just because red and yellow mix to make orange doesn’t mean red or yellow don’t exist. > [@](#): > > The criticism can be made that the placement of some populations located between the “cores zone” of these major races (e.g., Europe or East Asia) is ambiguous. However, in non-human taxonomy this would not normally invalidate the subspecies status of well-differentiated core populations.[109,110] In fact, zones of intergradation have traditionally been taken as evidence that core groups are indeed subspecies rather than different species.[111] [http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html](http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html) And in the Risch paper: > [@](#): > > By contrast, Pacific Islanders are those with indigenous ancestry from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Micronesia, as well as other Pacific Island groups further east. Native Americans are those that have indigenous ancestry in North and South America. Populations that exist at the boundaries of these continental divisions are sometimes the most difficult to categorize simply. For example, east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians [5]. The existence of such intermediate groups should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level. > **[gb-2002-3-7-comment2007.pdf](https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/gb-2002-3-7-comment2007.pdf)** > > 221.09 KB ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/210 "2010-09-26T07:12:48Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Again, you seem to think that the existence of mixed groups means that there are no races at all. As noted above, just because red and yellow mix to make orange doesn’t mean red or yellow don’t exist. > > [http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html](http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html) > > And in the Risch paper: > > > [@](#): > > > > By contrast, Pacific Islanders are those with indigenous ancestry from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Micronesia, as well as other Pacific Island groups further east. Native Americans are those that have indigenous ancestry in North and South America. Populations that exist at the boundaries of these continental divisions are sometimes the most difficult to categorize simply. For example, east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians [5]. The existence of such intermediate groups should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level. > > [http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/gb-2002-3-7-comment2007.pdf](http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/gb-2002-3-7-comment2007.pdf) That is a truly odd argument. On the one hand, it claims that “racial” typing is, somehow, “useful” for medical purposes, but then it turns right around and says “_well, but we’ll just put Ethiopians in a separate category because they do not match the data we want to use._” In the very next paragraph, that paper makes the claim that > [@](#): > > If biological is defined by susceptibility to, and natural history of, a chronic disease, then again numerous studies over past decades have documented biological differences among the races. In this context, it is difficult to imagine that such differences are not meaningful. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive a definition of ‘biological’ that does not lead to racial differentiation, except perhaps one as extreme as speciation. Yet, they are quite silent on examples for their claims as to just what “_differences in susceptibility to and natural history of a chronic disease_” have actually been documented by perceived “race.” They have just lumped Ashkenazi together with Armenians and Norwegians as a single group while apparently ignoring the prevalence of Tays-Sachs among the former and lacking among the two latter groups. They do not mention a single one of the “numerous” studies or a single incidence of such susceptibility or prevalence of a chronic disease. In fact, later in the paper, in a different context, as though they had not made the claim, here, they specifically use the identifiable separation of the Ashkenazi, Norwegians, and Armenians to demonstrate the usefulness of self-reported ethnicity. Arguing that self-reported ethnicity is a useful metric in diagnoses at the level of human populations seems to be well-supported. Expanding that to give some imaginary weight to perceived “race” is actually argued against by the very data they have employed. I suspect that they are arguing for a wished-for conclusion, since they spectacularly fail to provide actual evidence for what should be their primary purpose for their argument. I have no problem acknowledging geographic clustering, but it simply fails to provide any useful markers for any biological conditions. I will note, in something of a defense of the article, that later, when discussing the fact that they have managed to move Ethiopians out of the “African” race while moving New Guineans into the “Asian” race, (another “inconvenient” anomaly), that they note that very few Ethiopians or New Guineans are actually present in the U.S. population. In that context, they appear to arguing, in the article, for the legitimacy of employing self-reported race as a first cut diagnostic tool in North American medicine. In that limited context, they probably have a point–although even there, their presentation works for “ethnicity” and tends to fail on “race,” given that they have to mangle their own data to cram different groups into the “wrong” races. As a defence of using the word “race” in an overall description of humanity–and not in a limited application of a medical tool in one specific heterogenous population–their article spectacularly fails. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699/211 "2011-02-26T15:34:56Z")
I’m bumping this thread to provide a place where **New Deal Democrat** can defend some of [his ridiculous remarks](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13506805&postcount=104) (I really dislike racialist voodoo hijacking other threads). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-yea-or-nay/553699.md?page=10)