Races exist primarily on religeon…
You want to debate about this?? I have only read the first post and the last post…
…
I will withdrawl
Since I do not support quotas and I have never been a big fan of set-asides, I’m not sure what answer to give you.
I champion Affirmative Action (in its original intent and methodology) by the private sector. I have no problem with the government providing encouragement for AA and I want the government to provide legal recourse for people who have been discriminated against, but I am not really keen on the government mandating numbers. That is why I tiptoed around the issue of government assistance earlier.
Tom, you have been flashing a Thought Police badge ever since I started here.
You had better learn to live with acrimonious debate as human genomic data flood in. You and Coll want to decree that it is over and it is not.
I’ll tell you my problem. The Adena people of the Ohio Valley were almost certainly intrusive. Their skeletons are different from the other people in the areas. I would love it if there was someday found a genetic marker that would show an affinity between the Adena and say the Poverty Point People. Without that, we are going to have to guess, probably forever.
The Hopewell People, not just the Mound Builders but the whole group all the way to the Mississippi River, are possibly the ancestors of the Souix. If there was a genetic marker that showed a prevalence among the Hopewell skeletons and the Souix, well, it would be a piece of the puzzle.
With North American Indians, there have been huge adoptions/assimilations of conquered people so the trail could end ambigously. But if this field is dominated by the likes of you and Coll, this type of analysis will be disapproved of.
Then again, maybe I have some Heydrichian compulsion to take everyone’s Cephalic Index in order to determine who is going to be in the Master Race. Ya nevah know.
To think that you went back and researched all of those much, much earlier posts … well… I am appalled. Don’t you have a life other than polishing your Thought Police Badge?
You’re wrong as usual.
First, I didn’t do any big searches. The other threads were mentioned elsewhere and I happened to re-read them before your latest terrorist attacks against honest research. I just have a good memory and your carping and baseless accusations stood out when you repeated them, again.
Secondly, nothing that Collounsbury or I have posted would prevent any honest investigation. Each of us has noted that we originally came to the issue of “race” with the same basic, commonly accepted notions that everyone else has. What we discovered when we read the information published by people looking at data persuaded us (and everyone else who has looked at the data) that the common preconceptions were wrong.
In the current “race” threads, and in posts going back to last June, you have consistently attacked the idea that race is not genetic without providing a single shred of evidence to support your conclusion.
Neither of us has indicated that we believe that “race” could not occur–we simply note that the evidence goes entirely against that having actually happened.
You are the one who has decided (for no apparent reason) that you will not look at the data because it does not support your preconceived notions. Beginning at that bad starting point, you then engage in drive-by postings and name-calling simply because you fear something that is not even occurring. No one is going to be forbidden to examine earlier cultures simply because “race” has been proven to have no genetic basis. (If a paleontologist went to a funding group and declared that he wanted money to prove that some “racially superior” group had established a culture at a particular place, he should be laughed out of the room. If he goes and asks for funds to examine the relationships between a particular culture and descendents who may be alive today, no one is going to deny him the funds on the grounds that “races” do not exist.)
For your worries over the Adena and the ancestors of the Dakota, you are being silly. Ethnic populations certainly exist. The prevalence of the “Cohen” markers has been mentioned recently, (Collounsbury even addressed them), so how would “our way of thinking” prevent anyone from pursuing similar markers among the North American indigenes?
The “Cohen” markers have even been followed through Yemen and across the Red Sea to a group in Africa. The evidence is not conclusive, but the research is being done. The only general statement that Col and I have made is that there is no genetic basis for believing in continent-wide “racial” groupings. If the North American Indians were a “race,” you could not get the evidence you want, anyway, because “everyone” would know that all those markers would be the same and there would be no point in doing the research. You are being hostile and dishonest for no good reason–and your views are the most likely impediments to the research that you want to see happen.
As to my “Thought Police” badge, I don’t have one. I do have a personal animus against liars and people who post hatred for the fun of it. Heck, I’ve only challenged you on your ethnic-bashing twice, and in both cases I simply asked the point of your “question” and let the issue slide.
You are going to have to learn to live with acrimonius challenges to your hatred when you provide no substantial evidence for your position.
BETENOIR,
Politically incorrect term “races” is used in social/cultural sense. Geneticists/biologists use “populations” when they describe what you call “genetic differences”. Populations that share 99% or more of genetic markers can be easily identified (we are not that mixed yet), but they are not called races, which for some reasons is inflammatory to some people. The term “race” is alive and well in governmental and other papers. As TOURBOT said in it’s current usage, it (race – B.) doesn’t mean anything. Whether you want to call those categories races or not is then just a matter of semantics. Or politics.
DAL_TIMGAR: you could call them BREEDS instead.
Nah, not good, for the same reason: some people would not stand it.
You see COLLOUNSBURY’s evolution:So is this what you are calling ethnicity?It could be. Populations if we’re trying to pin down biology
He does not like “race”, is tepid about “ethnicity” and is OK with “populations”. Actually, the three differ somewhat, but all could be categorized by their genetic markers. “Ethnicity” would by definition include culture, and “race” would be too broad a category in that case.
No single marker is specific for any population, but a group of markers might be unique, especially, if it is large enough. A representative study can be found here:
http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514255674/html/x367.html
The authors attempted to identify the Finns in pretty genetically homogeneous Europe, based on thei markers!
MIPSMAN: Their skeletons are different from the other people in the areas.
Racial identification of skulls is a routine question offered on forensic pathology exams.
I would love it if there was someday found a genetic marker that would show an affinity between the Adena and say the Poverty Point People. Without that, we are going to have to guess, probably forever.
One marker is not enough. But several of them can place the group (“population”) precisely or completely exclude it.
(1) Human genomic data is indeed flooding in my dear non-reading one. In fact that’s precisely what I have been providing you with
(2) The debate about the genetics of race is indeed over, the data is clear
(3) As for the details of the human genome, of course that is another matter.
I’ll tell you your problem:
(1) You leap to conclusions
(2) You have a closed mind and refuse to grapple with new evidence
(3) You either don’t pay attention to what others say or you deliberatly distort.
Genetic research may or may not show something, but certainly that is a path to take. We would need, of course, a statistically valid sample of remains from both cultures. This is, in fact precisely the kind of research the new advances in genetics encourage.
Disproved of? You mean forbidden? Nice of you to sling mud, but bucky boy, what do you think all those cites I provide do? Nothing has been forbidden, no research supressed. Rather, the results are the results. Don’t like it? Can’t wrap you mind around it? Tough. In any case, this sort of objection simply underlines that you have simply not read the literature we have provided, otherwise you’d realise how ridiculous this claim is.
Do you have any arguments other than baseless ad hominems? Do you have anything at all intelligent to contribute?
Does no one pay attention?
Bluish, I’ve addressed your misreadings of how to use the genetic evidence and the link provided. Please read more attentively.
No. Reread the material.
Collounsbury : Bluish, I’ve addressed your misreadings of how to use the genetic evidence and the link provided. Please read more attentively.
Thank you, I know how to read. It has been satisfactory so far.
One marker is not enough. But several of them can place the group (“population”) precisely or completely exclude it.
This is done routinely. You may like it or not, it’s still done, regardless of your political agenda. Race identification of sculls has been done by police/forensic departments (and anthropologists) for as long as I know. Subchapter called “Determination of Race” is part of the classic textbook on forensic pathology widely used in the U.S. and abroad. The term “populations” is used for describing frequencies of haplotypes.
That’s the way the things are today in science. They might be different in the streets.
You can assert that to your heart’s content, bluish, but you never provided the scientific evidence to support that when you were posting last month.
This is not a matter of politics, regardless how often you and mipsman want to try to sidetrack the issue with red herrings and strawmen.
There are genetically related populations that can be identified. Neither Collounsbury nor I have claimed otherwise. The objection is to the idea that there are some sort of identifiable “races”. I agreed last month that we could identify populations genetically; the problem with the “race” issue is that there would have to be hundreds of thousands of races to use that word to identify each genetically. Since anthropologists, using the notion of groups identified by mere appearance come up with between three and 60 “races,” the number of biological populations that can be genetically identified are far too many to fit into those few groups.
Claiming that you are capable of reading, but choosing to not read does not make your case. We went over this all before.
The forensics works to an acceptable level of error when dealing with a known population, to begin with. It fails when one drops an unidentified skull into a region where that skull is unexpected. In other words, it is not a bad multiple choice test for rough and ready police work, but fails at the level of science.
You very own links provided that exact information in January.
Tom, Tom, Tom, you are way over-reacting. “Hate” has nothing to do with these discussions from my side. I do dislike you as I dislike anybody who sets themself up as the Liberal Conscience of a group. I also dislike people who set themselves up as Conservative Consciences but they are the kind of people who kill you for disagreeing with them so I tend to leave them alone. But self styled Liberal Consciences are usually wimps and can be disputed with and insulted with impunity.
Bluish, point well taken. Even with several markers, if it would just increase the odds that an individual was more likely in one group than the other it would/will be a valuable tool. I have great hopes for the future. Someday we might be able to drop some DNA in a machine and a computer screen will show what the individual would look like. I can dream.
Tom might wring his hand that such a tool will be used for evil but I think it will be used for niceness.
Hi Tomndebb! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here and I wanted to say I’m sorry to hear that you have lost a hand. How did Mipsman find that out? I searched the site and found no mention of it.
Jois
Welcome back Peace. Still pulling the same old same old I see.
I believe we already covered most of your distortions previously, have we not? I can’t recall you having any substantive replies in the Pit Thread devoted to genetics (not the one devoted to your other behaviour.).
Which is done?
Precisely defining populations? Fraid not. (Although if one gerrymanders the term precisely…)
Distinguishing populations based on frequencies, certianly. But those populations are neither precise nor clearly bounded as compared to other populations, regardless of the markers used. Rather the population defined will depend on the markers selected. As anyone can see from the data, we find no fully coherent group based variation across a spectu
Politics, seems to be yours.
Peace, peace, we covered this already. I really don’t feel like recapitulating the pit thread.
(Meanwhile, please don’t pretend to be teaching me the terminology.)
Mipsman: Liberal Conscience/Conservative Conscience, what the fuck are you talking about?
Let me repeat, do you have any substantive thing to bring to these threads or are you just going to come in with a thumb up your… repeating the same old assertions?
Tiresome, folks, tiresome.
Liberal Conscience? Hardly.
Please point to any position I have taken on any scientific topic that has been driven by politics either liberal or conservative. You are making it up out of whole cloth.
Looking at my posts on
race,
gun control,
abortion,
military use,
economics,
environment,
and a host of other topics, a reader with no need to make a false point will note that I post from the right a tad more often than from the left. If one is driven by a need for ad hominem arguments, one can select a single post and try to paint me as a liberal. One cannot do this with any honesty, however, as you surely know.
If you have an actual scientific reference to support your contention that there are genetic groups large enough to be considered a “race,” please post it. Otherwise, we will have to conclude that you are only interested in spreading ignorance–NOT the Straight Dope thing to do. You repeatedly return to this thread with personal attacks and no data. That is also not the Straight Dope.
Now that you bring it up, how large would a genetic group have to be for it to be considered a “race”, by your definition? And how large are the largest identifiable genetic groups (and which are they)?
For me to accept a group as a race, I would expect to see something more than 1% of the world’s population. (Giving us the rather unwieldy number of just under 100 races.) Chamla’s estimate (and I do not know how much support there is for that, yet), indicates nearly a million gentically identifiable populations.
Tom
Yes, but you have not indicated that all these mini-races are of equal size. Is it possible that certain groups might actually be quite large?
Also, is this million race number arrived at by considering every single genetic difference as a separate race? Might there be larger groupings that can be arrived at by grouping similar groups? (The most startling assertion that I’ve seen in these threads is that by Collounsbury that two random Africans are no more likely to be genetically similar than a random African to a random European. What I’m asking here is if there might be large groups (not necessarily continental) that are not genetically identical, but within whom a random member is more likely to be genetically similar to another of the same group than he is to a member of a different group?)
Collounsbury and tomndebb
Could you comment on this article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on
"heredity…Genetics of race and species differences"
This article seems to treat human races as having a genetic reality, in marked contrast to the impression that you guys give that such a view is ignorant. Among other quotes:
*Originally posted by IzzyR *
Not to nitpick (OK, maybe I am), but you might want to read through the entire entry (excerpt below from Enclyclopedia Britanica):
“In modern times many of the barriers, both geographic and cultural, between the races have weakened. Since most of the external differences between races are polygenically and environmentally determined, interracial matings produce offspring that, in general, have a phenotype intermediate between those of the parents. Of the total number of loci existing in the human species, numbering at least 100,000, the majority of their alleles probably are present among the members of each race. Although one population of alleles–for example, those for dark skin colour–may be common in one race and rare in another, each particular skin-colour allele occurs in both races. In fact, studies involving many polymorphic loci (loci with two or more alleles occurring with a frequency of at least 1 percent) have revealed that the allelic diversity among individuals within a single race is greater than that between races.”
I think the author was alluding to previous notions of race as espoused by J. F. Blumenbach (1752-1840) who devised the above mentioned five-race classification. My guess: the author may have been trying to provide a historical context for the issue. Note the words “theorists”, “imagining”, and “speculated”. The rest of the entry is clearly indicating that the evidence doesn’t support the five-race schema.
From casual reading, I can see where some people might think that the issue is still open for debate (re:racial classification having a biological/valid basis). I’m not saying you didn’t read the article closely, IzzyR - but I can see why it might cause some confusion.
IzzyR,
Here’s another excerpt:
“Races are populations, and an individual may have a genetic endowment that can occur in two or more different races or that is not common in any race. An individual belongs, however, to only one species, unless that individual is a species hybrid.”
In this context, the author is using the word “race” to mean “population”, not in the original five-race classification mentioned in the initial paragraph. I can see where the confusion might arise.