What is racism?

Great Debates
101

Yes. But then people like LHOD would have to answer questions like these:

[QUOTE=magellan01]
First, you’re begging the question. Second, why is it off limits to assume that the degree to which different races have outwardly notable physical characteristics (height, skin color, hair texture, eye shape, facial features, etc.), there might also be some characteristics not as evident? I see no reason to think that there might be differences among the races that we can’t see on the outside. Why do you think the default position should be there are none? Based on the evidence we can see on the outside, there are differences. By what logic do you assume that those differing characteristics stop there. Why MUST brains be identical?

I’m not arguing that there necessarily are differences, just questioning why you feel so comfortable with your default position.
[/QUOTE]

And he/they really, really don’t want to do that.

102

Oopsy daisy.

103

Here is a link to a study of some African pygmy populations. In this particular study they included people who self-identified as members of one of 3 West African pygmy groups. These people were strongly admixed with their Bantu neighbors. So their self-identification as “pygmy” is not necessarily predictive of their genome, yet from what I gathered about the study I imagine their actual height may be predictive of some element of their genome. The article also discusses the evidence for a past history of selection for the gene frequencies and the phenotype. Its introduction provides many links to phenotypic variation between other pygmy population in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. There’s a lot about it that I don’t understand, primarily because of jargon. The article is free to read.

Just so you know, in my description of the article I tried to highlight the facts, as I understand them, that differentiate between your line of argumentation and what the scientists who attempt to repress their biases do. That’s why I think of you as a racist. It’s not a ‘gotcha’.

104

Although, magellan, I know you’ll facepalm and apologize for suggesting I hadn’t already answered your question, I thought an analogy might help.

Let’s say I gathered up a bunch of shopping bags from a variety of commercial establishments. I decided to sort the bags by color: some are red, some are green, some are yellow. This is a taxonomy that anyone could follow and reproduce, and it looks objectively strong.

But it wouldn’t be very predictive at all about what’s in the bags, because the outward color of the bag has little to do with what’s inside the bag.

Still, it would be more predictive of the bag’s contents than racial groupings are of neurological traits. In my analogy, my taxonomy is human-created, and the contents of the bags were put there by humans. It’s quite possible that the shopkeepers who filled the bags have some sort of social bias toward, for example, putting clothes in red bags and burgers in yellow bags, and that I could predict that social bias since I live in the same society.

With race, only the taxonomy is created by humans: we look at the outside of the people and construct a taxonomy accordingly. But the “inside” of the people–the invisible neurological traits–aren’t created by someone in our society. There’s no particular reason to suspect that they’d match the “outside” even as well as the contents of various bags would match the bag colors.

105

If I follow this argument, it essentially says that since “races” aren’t very definable genetically (let’s agree to permit that point for now rather than belabor it), it makes no sense to suspect that different races (now a “purely social construct”) would have differences other than superficial ones.

This is the argument I do not understand, because it seems to ignore the history of human migration and evolution, which is reasonably well-accepted.

Here’s the history of humans I accept:
We started in africa. We developed a boatload of diversity there (all groups L3 and earlier if we are using mtDNA haplogrouping as a reasonably convenient marker), and some population(s) made it out of africa somewhere around 70kya. Since humans began, geographic, migration and cultural influences have led to all kinds of populations all over the place; clinal to some degree but not still a homogenous pool, and particularly not smooth where separation times have been in excess of tens of thousands of years with only minor admixture across those (typically geographic and cultural) boundaries.

OK; so we cannot define a “race.” I mean, it’s a matter of definition. No problem.

But people do sort themselves, and one such sorting is into SIRE groups the US uses; these roughly reflect continent of origin. The history of migration and evolution has affected average gene pools for those groups. Gene frequency measurements within those groups cluster by SIRE groups, and there is a very plausible explanation for that clustering:
Advantageous genes produced by evolution will achieve high penetration within descendant groups from the point where the gene evolved. If that descendant group is separated from a different group by geography and culture, then the new gene will cluster for the descendant group. The descendant group will have a different average gene pool from ancestral groups (themselves evolving their own new gene pools).

We have good examples of this. The SIRE group of “white” has lighter skin than the SIRE group of “black” because the source population from which it derived has–on average–a different gene pool. It is not the case that there is a completely homogenous gene pool out there, out of which the “whites” and “blacks” are arbitrarily categorized. There is a real and well-accepted migration/evolution explanation for it, and it’s at the point of the L3/M-N split; post this split, there is a different average gene pool for “whites” than there is for “blacks.”

So I don’t understand the argument that we need to decide first what defines a group genetically. That’s an argument of lumpers and splitters and linguists. Instead, we approach the question of genetic differences from the opposite side of the coin. IF you self-identify as “black” and IF we take large numbers of self-identified blacks, then the average gene pool (Navin Johnson notwithstanding) of the black pool is different for melanin handling than is the average gene pool for that same characteristic for whites.

And the thing that makes that average gene pool difference is not that we arbitrarily plucked out one outcome from a million possible characteristics that could have been used for taxonomy. The thing that drives that difference is a well-accepted, well-defined, measurable divergence of populations at the L3/M-N out of africa migration split.

So getting rid of “races” does not get rid of this problem: Why would nature somehow have manipulated only genes for “superficial” characteristics after anatomically modern humans appeared 200 kya? Why would not every population develop new genes driven by evolution, and why would not there be average differences in gene pools for descendant populations at every splitting point? Why would not a “significant” outcome difference in populations that represent ancient splitting point divisions be reasonably ascribed to genes just the way we ascribe physical appearance differences to the same evolutionary changes affecting average genes in the same descendant populations?

I believe that is a serious scientific mistake to try and get rid of the “genes” argument for outcome differences by simply claiming that “there is no reasonable biological definition of race.”

106

Thanks for proving my point. You will do anything to not answer what I ask. Including offering up absurd analogies. I know your game. You cannot, will not accept that there is something that we can discuss that we call “race”. Gotcha. I’ll simply point you to Chief Pendant’s post and wait for you to dance your away around that, too.

107

That’s OK, as there are many other reasons to discount the genetic explanation- chiefly, that there is no actual genetic evidence for it. I trust that outcome differences today, in this not-equal world, are no more likely to represent some sort of genetic hierarchy of intelligence than the different disparate outcomes from any random point in the past. Not only do outcome differences tell us nothing about genetics, but in today’s world, outcome differences simply can’t tell us anything at all about genetics.

So no one gets a pass on making racist claims simply because they think they have good evidence for it. Racist claims are racist, pure and simple… it doesn’t matter why one makes a claim that one race/group/etc is inherently more/less intelligent or moral than another, it’s a racist claim no matter what. Pretty much all racists throughout history thought they had good evidence or good reasons for making racist claims… I see no reason why this would be different now.

108

The old trick of petulance, absolutely, will serve you when nothing else will. Of course I answered your questions, both before and after you accused me of not answering them. And of course I admit there’s something we can discuss called “race.” But you can lalala your way out of addressing my answers and sulk if that’s what suits you best, by all means.

109

Very, very, very roughly, with Australian aboriginals sorted in with sub-Saharan Africans, and folks from western African sorted in with those from south Africa, and so on. We sort according to skin color almost exclusively, and that’s not an accurate indicator of ancestral relationship.

110

Is it good science to dismiss future/continued efforts to study the influence of genetics on intelligence by social grouping by calling it racism from the onset? Are there no good reasons to do this kind of research at all? (FWIW, I’m struggling to identify the actual “good” that would come from such a finding, except for the intrinsic belief that all knowledge is ultimately beneficial - I hope.)

Anyway, I suspect that if any differences in intelligence or morality are found to be reflected in our genetic code, they will not compartmentalize conveniently along the lines of skin color - much to the chagrin of your average xenophobe.

111

I’m not doing this. I’m not calling good science and good research racist- I’m calling racist claims racist.

112

But you’re also saying, if I’m understanding you correctly, that it’s problematic to continue along this line of research because there is no evidence that genetic differences can be attributed to these sorts of claims. Furthermore, you’re saying that any such claims up to now have been based on racist beliefs - demonstrably true in many/most cases.

I know that you’re not saying that we should cease all further research into genetics and it’s influence on intelligence.

What I don’t understand is what it is you are saying in this regard. Should research continue or should it not? And if not, is that because there is too much at risk given human history and predilection for racism?

113

No, I’m not saying this.

Sure, research can continue. I have no problem with research, provided it’s good science and ethical.

I’m not calling research racist, I’m calling racist claims racist. People, including scientists, should be afraid to make racist claims. If they think that’s what their research is indicating, they better be awfully careful- and so far, the researchers who have made such claims have not been careful. Their science has been weak or inadequate (or made up, in some cases). I don’t feel bad about calling racist claims racist, regardless of why the claimer makes it.

114

Right now, there’s no evidence even that intelligence has a genetic component, to the best of my knowledge. No gene has been identified that marks for any influence on intelligence, with the exception of serious mental illnesses or disabilities, and we’re not discussing those to this point in the thread.

It’s possible, as I said before, that at some point there will be strong scientific evidence that psychokinesis is possible or that members of one race are smarter than members of another race. But for the racist claim, the order of science will probably look like this:

  1. Look! We found this specific genetic marker that correlates very strongly with aptitude at probability problems!
  2. Dude! We devised a probability test for infants, and this discrepancy at understanding probability shows up even among infants!
  3. Check it out! Our latest research shows that the expression of this genetic marker is only weakly affected by environmental conditions, meaning that aptitude at probability is an inherited trait!
  4. Woah–our latest research shows that inhabitants of this particular region in Nepal has this genetic marker far more commonly than a control group of college students in the US.
  5. Huh–now we’re finding a weaker effect among all folks who trace their population back to central Asia and China. But the effect is still there.

IOW, real scientists are going to start with the actual gene and follow the evidence of the gene where it leads. Racist scientists are going to start with the conclusion and find the evidence that leads to it.

115

I would agree that that’s most likely how it would be proved (assuming it exists altogether). But primarily because most scientists are not interested in being called racists, and there are other things they can research which won’t carry that risk.

So if such a link is eventually found it would likely be the result of a convergence of non-racial research into genetic causes of intelligence, and non-intelligence research into genetic variation by “race”.

116

Is that correct? I had thought there was some evidence that intelligence is at least partly heritable. Twin studies and the like. No?

117

E.g.: Genetics of intelligence | European Journal of Human Genetics

118

One of the most fundamental parts of these disputes is therepeated insistence by anti-racialists that until there is evidence of the actual specific genes involved there is “no evidence” of a genetic factor.

The type of evidence that you cite doesn’t fit that bill.

119

Of course it’s not correct.

There is, of course, muchfurtherevidence.

I mean, come on.

Regards,
Shodan

120

I had understood the argument to be less about the heritability of intelligence and more about the incoherence of race (or SIRE) as a meaningful proxy for genetic relationships.

The article I cited goes on to say: