Gotta disagree here. Race is a biological concept, referring to particular subgroups within species. The sociological misapplication of race has (e.g. “blacks are intellectually inferior to whites”) has caused many to disavow racial classification of humans, but the concept and definition of race as used in biology has not ceased to exist.
Actually, GaryT, “race” is not a biological concept. There is no biological definition of race that can be applied in any scientific fashion. There is no scientific classification of “subgroups” of the human race on a biological level, only on a sociological level.
Ainu is Australoid? So Melkor’s actual greeting to the early elves would have been “G’day, mate”?
:duck. run.:
So I was hallucinating when I studied race as a biology major? The epicanthic fold is not a biological feature? When a population of organisms is spit into two or more groups that cease to interbreed for a time, and after many generations these groups can be distinguished from each other by consistently different characteristics, that’s sociological? I doubt it.
Not necessarily. It depends on how long ago you studied biology (and/or how current your biology teachers were regarding that area of study). Most of the efforts that have led to the discarding of “race” as a biological construct have occurred in the last 20 years (some of the more powerful indictments against “race” are only around 10 years old).
It is quite possible to have studied race in school within the not too distant past.
However, the efforts of a number of geneticists and other researchers have pretty thoroughly demonstrated that the genetic composition of people is so thoroughly mixed and the “borders” indicating racial lines in geography are so porous that it is no longer possible to discuss race in a biological context.
(There are several dozen threads in GQ, GD, and the Pit that have gone over these themes to the exhaustion of nearly all the participants. A number of the significant ones have been docmented on this web site: Reality of Race )
Has that site been taken down? Or is my ISP simply not in contact with that server at the moment?
I can’t find it right now, but somewhere at home I saved a post to a Jewish geneaology listserv that I subscribe to. Basically, there is a huge effort right now within the Jewish community to conduct DNA testing of its members, for various reasons (including documenting migration patterns across Europe and the Middle East, determining family relationships for purposes of documneting relationships to Holocuast victims, figuring out exactly which poulations are susceptible to genetic abnormalities that lead to disease and birth defects that are more common among Jews, determining who is a member of the Cohanim or priestly caste; the list goes on and on.
You can find a blurb on geneaology by genetics at
http://www.jewishgen.org/dna/
Anyway, another listserv member, a scientist who has been working on a DNA testing project (as I understand it, some DNA population mapping projects aren’t restricted to Jews) decided, just for kicks, to test his own DNA and see if he matched to anyone. He did: to a guy in Tajikistan, and to another guy in India, neither of whom had listed any Jewish ancestry that they were aware of. This meant that they had at least one common male ancestor, even if it was way back in the mists of time.
And besides, the Jews have only been around for a few thousand years as a distinct group, whether you want to call it a race or anethnicity or whatever; who’s to say that before that, they (I guess I should say “we,” since I’m Jewish) didn’t share common ancestors with all sorts of other people who might not want to acknowledge being related to Jews in this day and age (and vice versa)?
Sheesh, we’re all human beings!
I’m sure it made no difference to the Jews that were being led out of bondage. What difference could it make now?
Gary T: The confusion here probably stems from a confusion of the definition of “race”. “Race” as used in the “Oregon race” of the Dark-Eyed Junco ( Junco hyemalis ) is still in use. Although like the overlapping concept of subspecies it has been attacked by many modern Systematic Biologists as being a fairly meaningless and vague concept that conveys no useful evolutionary information. At best it is a handy placeholder to refer to a particular color morph ( as in those Juncos ).
But the most common usage of race re:humans - As genetically coherent subpopulations corresponding to apparent physiognomy - Has been disproven.
It still has utility as a sociological term, but there is simply too much genetic variation within even small, local human populations to form a rigorous, biologically accurate defintion of race. It is conceivable that if you altered the common understanding of the defintion and looked at tiny, isolated populations, you might be able to trase out thousands of very ephemeral human “races” ( i.e. “populations” ). But frankly for the vast majority people alive today it would be impossible to do even that. We move around too much and interbreed too readily as a species.
- Tamerlane
None. There is no evidence that Moses ever existed or that the Exodus ever happened. All this was probably made up by the priests in the 6th or 7th century B.C., many biblical scholars believe.
Difference? Who’s looking to make a difference? I leave that to activists. When I want to make a difference I head up the food drive at my work, or the toys-for-tots drive, or I make a quiet donation to a charity that seems worthy.
I was looking to satisfy my curiosity - which is a common motivation for me.