so someone asked why don’t all white people look alike. they have more physical variations than other races, bla bla bla etc. but i’m not so sure about that one. i look at black people and find some that are whiter than the whitest white people i know. others are just as dark as human flesh can possibly be (though most are usually somewhere in the middle). so what’s this about white people all looking so different? they only come in shades of white. blacks and indians and whoever else may be all shades of white and brown. also, some blacks have very kinky hair while others not so kinky. sure whites have more variations in hair and eye color, but still… i almost never see white people with full lips, but i see black people with full lips, thin lips and all sizes in between. what’s the deal w/ that question? and am i the only one who read cecil’s response and said, “ehh??”… is cecil on cocaine or am i?
Some “minorities” say white people all look alike. Depends on who’s talking.
This is going to get moved to Comments on Cecil’s Columns forums, but…
IME, it has to do with the number of “minorities” you come into contact with every day. If you’ve only got a tiny percent of, say Asians, in your town you might very well think they look alike. But head off to Japan and hang around in Tokyo for six months and mingle with the local population and you will most certainly notice that they don’t all “look alike”.
Hair and skin color are the two racial identification traits that can be distinguished at a reasonable distance. Since caucasians hair color seems to differ widely (blond to brown to brunette to red), that makes them seem to have a greater variety of traits. Skin, on the other hand, is more covered than not by clothes and is not so easily distinguished between people, especially during seasonal times when 95% of the skin will be covered when outside.
For the OP, who I see lives in California, I’d like to point out that the majority of “black” people living in America are NOT pure African descent but are actually quite a bit Caucasian themselves. Some of them, in fact, are much more of European descent than African regardless of how they self-identify. It’s one of those dirty little things no one wants to talk about, but back in the days of slavery an awful lot of white men forced themselves on black women resulting in the wide range of skin tones seen today. (Post-slavery interracial marriage accounts for some, too)
Also, there’s a lot of “white” folks running around the United States who are part Native American, Asian, or :eek: >gasp!< African themselves.
For a proper comparison, you need to compare Sub-Saharan Africans with European/Middle Eastern/Asian Causaisans. Even there, there’s been a certain amount of mixing.
Since this refers to one of Cecil’s columns (How come white people don’t all look alike?), Ill move it to Comments on Cecil’s Columns.
Off to Comments on Cecil’s Columns
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator
I’m White. I used to interact with Black homeless kids in the SF Bay Area. Until I got to know the kids individually, I had a lot of trouble telling them apart. Now I live in Minnesota and I see tons of blonde White kids in church and in my kids’ schools. Until I get to know them individually, I have just as hard a time telling them apart.
Interesting article on geography and skin pigmentation in the most recent Scientific American. That article would probably ascribe the wider differences in pigmentation among Europeans to (a) the fact that there is a wider variance in UV radiation from Northern to Southern Europe than there is in, say, Africa, and (b) that Northern Europeans probably settled that area much earlier than most other northern regions of the world have been settled, thus giving the Northern Europeans time to evolve a lighter pigmentation in order to absorb more sunlight (and thus produce adequate Vitamin D and folic acid) in those higher latitudes.
The article does not explain why relatively recent migrants to Northern latitudes (Inuit, for instance) do not suffer from inadequate Vitamin D production despite their relatively dark complexions compared to Northern Europeans.
The answer is probably “fish bones” or other sources of calcium. Vitamin D (and lactose) is important in extracting calcium from milk. If you’re not depending on milk as a source of calcium, you probably don’t need as much Vitamin D.
Actually, since Cecil wrote this column, it’s been shown that the African peoples have more genetic variation than the entire rest of the world combined. The main reason is that we evolved in somewhere Africa, and then started spreading out; since there’s a very narrow land bridge between Africa and the rest of the world, the diaspora bottlenecked through that bridge. That region was settled once, and everybody outside of Africa is descended from those original settlers.
I think the real reason most people think people of other races all look alike is that we learn to distinguish faces when we’re babies, which means we mostly learn to pick out the sorts of variation that appear in our family. (This would also explain something that always bugged me when I was a kid: strangers could spot resemblances within my own family better than I could. I was programmed to see the differences in the family, so I never really saw the similarities.)
CECIL IS A RACIST! CECIL IS A RACIST! More on that later. Here’s an anthropological update, people: There is no such thing as RACES as far as humans are concerned. All who exist are Homo Sapiens Sapiens. The variants between regions have nothing to do with race and everything to do with adaptation throughout the millenia to specific environments. Since mass migration is a (relatively) recent process, occasional mutations (such as having no skin pigmentation aka being “white”) in each region altered some superficial traits. Those traits, since the local population were not in contact with others, were passed on from generation to generation. Hence, some superficial characteristics vary throughout the world. But otherwise, as far as biology and the emerging precepts of modern anthropology go, WE ARE ALL IDENTICAL. “Race” is a concept that was borrowed from other species and applied to humanity as a way to explain european superiority. It is fiction, backed by ignorance and grade-school logic. “They talk diffren’t they akt diffren’t they muss be diffren’t”.
The purging of such widely accepted falsehoods has been an uphill battle, one which just suffered a big blow here. That the Straight Dope would get it so wrong is a shock to me. Cecil’s response lacked some crucial digging in the world of modern anthropology. A world which is still backwards in much of its own mainstream. In short, it was racist. Cause here’s another update:
A racist isn’t only someone who “hates” other “races”, it has come to identify anyone who even acknowledges that “races” exist - that humanity is divided in three different “races”. They don’t and it isn’t. Pass it on.
Here’s some of what’s seeping through the ignorance:
http://www26.brinkster.com/archived/viewnews.asp?newsID=767696559429
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/oct00/notes.htm
And a prediction: in some two hundred years, people are going to be looking back at much of our anthropology as we now look back at medieval medicine. Astonished and maybe more than a little embarrassed.
Actually, what we will look back on in embarrassment is the idiotic notion that there is no such thing as race. Look around–there it is!
My god, what are you smoking? Those “variants” and “adaptations” ARE race!
Once again, that’s what race is–the local concentration of variations in superficial characteristics. The very point of calling them “races” is that the difference are not great enough to qualify us as separate species, or even subspecies.
Say what? What species? What species was labeled as having distinct races before man was?
Backwards and fallacious. European superiority was assumed, and didn’t need to be explained (now who’s the racist?). While greater weight was once given to race than it deserved, and people like you still believe that it must have some far-reaching consequence, that’s just a straw man. Race is superficial, but it obviously exists. The silly arguments discussed in the article you posted (twice) do not impress the author, nor me. The genetic difference between races is smaller than that between men and chimpanzees? No kidding. The basic genetic code is shared by all living things on Earth; it’s no surprise that the genetic similarity between humans and other primates is great, and it’s even less of a surprise that the difference between the races lies in a handful of genes, and exists as a statistical phenomenon rather than a vast gulf. The article you quoted exposes the fallacy: “[the typological idea of ‘race’] asserts that every representative of a race conforms to the type and is separated from the representatives of any other race by a distinct gap.” If that definition were correct, there would be no such thing as race. But it’s wrong, and races, as distinguishable (as opposed to distinct) populations, very plainly do exist.
It’s not cocaine you’re on, dear, it’s poor reading comprehension. The question Cecil answered (and his answer) was about pigment, not about thick lips or any other characteristic. The question propely applies to the unmixed populations labeled “Negroid” (or “Black” or African") and “Causasoid” (or “White” or “European”), so observations about American populations are also beside the point. Africans are highly pigmented; Europeans less so. The presence in the latter population of virtually nonpigmented individuals is more noticeable in comparison to their moderately pigmented relations than is the presence of moderately pigmented individuals among a heavily pigmeted population. To put it more simply, the difference between light and dark is more obvious than the difference between dark and really dark.
Qasper, I think you’ve overstated a couple of points, here.
Certainly, there is no biological coherence to the groups generally identified as the Five Races (or the Three Races or the 60 Races). However, “race” can be used to group broad populations by general appearance. It is wholly arbitrary and not supported by genetics, but peope can perceive groups they identify as races and it is a handy (if misleading) shorthand to refer to them in a cultural or sociological (never a biological) context.
While I agree that either Cecil or little Ed should update that article with more recent information, it should be pointed out that the article was written in 1982–a minimum of seven and closer to ten years prior to the earliest declarations from the scientific community that the Five (or Three or 60) races had no basis in physical reality.
(eponymous put together a web site at http://www.eneubauer.com/ that discusses the way in which the classic definitions of race have been disproven at some length (and links to quite a few discussion that had occurred on the SDMB up to the time when the page was created. (We have wrangled over the same issue another dozen or two times since then, of course.))
This is overstatement. Linnaeus did create the notion of race to identify groups within humanity. White Europeans did get “rated” as more advanced by Linnaeus and his immediate successors. However, that was more of an unconscious organizing principle than a deliberate effort to look down on non-Europeans. There have been racist ethnologists who set out to show that the “others” were inferior, but there is no indication that the purpose of the earliest writers on the subject were creating something for the purpose of exalting themselves; it is more a case of basing their organizing principles on parochial assumptions. The actions were the same, but the motives were different.
This is one use for the word racist, but it is not the only or even primary meaning of the word. Throwing it out as if it is true will simply lead to semantic wars (or a dismissal of your position).
By the way,
does not become true by shouting. We are not “all identical.” There are groups of people who share enough genetic information that is distinct from the rest of humanity to be identified as populations. No such group is large enough to be given the older name of “race” (and the use of “race” in that context would be misleading on several levels, so I do oppose its use). However, proclaiming that no such populations exist is simply not accurate.
Nah. They only exist as arbitrary associations imposed by sociological or cultural preconceptions.
As has been argued and linked on numerous occasions, the scientific community is rejecting the word race because we cannot come up with a coherent grouping of people that would fit into the Five Races. There is far too much overlap among all groups to permit it.
Actually, the point that is usually noted is that there is less genetic variation across all of humanity (6 billion people) than there is among one set of lowland gorillas limited to a fairly small region in Africa (many fewer than 10,000 individuals). Humanity is amazingly uniform in terms of genetic variation. Even the populations I noted earlier are based on differences that are nearly meaningless except as a way to identify them.
Yeah, but the same could be said of any pair of populations that aren’t yet distinct species. For example, the ancestors of African and Indian elephants were once one population; at some point, they separated, and began to drift apart. They may be separate species today, but there is no point in history at which you could say, “Yesterday they were one species; today they are two”. More to the point, there are regions in between in which one could plausibly argue over whether the differences between the populations are significant or not. And yet, it would surely be useful to be able to look at the two populations and realize that membership in one population or the other correlated with the likelihood of having some particular trait.
It is a fact that there are populations of humans, which tend to breed within themselves, and whose properties can be discussed statistically. It is also a fact that those statistical variations are essentially irrelevant to any reasonable decision-making about individual humans (or even, usually, about groups). It is a fact that the boundaries between populations are imprecise–the set of populations is not a partition; for any definition you choose, there will be people in more than one population, or even in none. And it is a fact that the legacy of racial discrimination means that calling these populations “races” tends to cloud people’s minds and make it difficult to discuss these facts.
But that doesn’t mean the populations don’t exist. It’s not a very useful concept, particularly given how hard it is to apply; but there are lots of useless concepts in the world. “Microsoft Customer Service”, for example. 
First, I cringe every time I read that column. Even for 1982, citing to Coon was, at best, a stunning act of idiocy and poor research on his part as a substantive body of refutative work existed to demolish Coon. There were better, more scientific materials to work with -e.g. Wolpoff who unlike Coon was and is not a racist. Coon was clearly so.
Now, in re the variation, this is spurious and driven by navel gazing. The very problem of deciding who is “caucasian” highlights the idiocy of the statement, which was clear even at the time our soi-disant master wrote, had he bothered to look more deeply in the literature.
I have a post to make in GD in re the latest race thread, some more primary literature to report on etc. I hope to have time to finish it up if I find time to read two or three new genetics articles, otherwise I shall have to post an incomplete one lest it all be forgotten.
Well, he had to cite somebody on the multiple-species hypothesis. It’s a dumb hypothesis, but it’s one that used to get a lot of attention, and a lot of people still remember it as a possibility. Just a couple of months ago, I mentioned to my mother (fairly well-educated, 60s liberal) that I was reading The Third Chimpanzee, on human origins, and she asked what the current thinking was on the multiple-species question.
It’s not as if he gives Coon a lot of credit; he says that Coon came up with an elaborate expression of a racist hypothesis, and demonstrates how easy that hypothesis is to debunk.
Actually, The Third Chimpanzee does mention one possibility of semi-separate origins (separate subspecies, not separate species). Apparently, there was another Homo sapiens subspecies in Asia–not H. sapiens neanderthalis or H. sapiens sapiens–which had skull sutures vaguely similar to those of modern-day Asians. Some people have speculated that, when H. sapiens sapiens reached Asia, they interbred with the locals, and modern Asians are a hybrid. It’s an interesting idea, even if it is probably unprovable (the skull sutures are a pretty weak piece of evidence, and could have been convergent adaptation–if the shape of the skull is embryonically linked to the epicanthic fold, for example, then the invading H. sapiens sapiens might have displaced the locals and then come to resemble them). And it’s an idea that white racists aren’t likely to glom onto, since it suggests that modern Asians, bearing the best genes of both subspecies, might actually be superior to unhybridized H. sapiens sapiens. (“Superior” if you’re a racist and ready to believe in racial superiority in the first place, that is.)
But that’s the question he was asked.
Sure he did, and that person was the U Michigan guys, Wolpoff et al, who I am fairly certain were already the lead folks on that theory by 82. As I recall Wolpoff started publishing in the early 70s. I may be wrong on the publication dates, but I don’t think so.
Barring correction, I stand by my estimation that even for 82 this was piss poor research.
Understandable. Wolpoff still argues for a weak multi-source descent for man. Although with the vast weight of genetic research running against him, it really is time to throw the hat in the ring.
I still maintain he could have dug up a fairer, better rep for the multihypothesis c. 1982. It was then either piss poor research, misunderstanding or a straw man. None of which reflect well on our soi-disant master in this area.
It is disprovable and largely disproven, at least in terms of inputs to current modern populations – genetic analysis a la what has been done to date with Neandertal remains. (3 widely dispersed samples, statistically significant but admittedly small sample size) place Neandertal diversity well outside current modern human diversity. Does not exclude inter-fertility, but does exclude, provisionally, Neander descent for modern HSS.
I would suspect that some work will be done with the Asian remains, however already current genetic data robustly and universally supports OoA exit c. 100 kya (with likely multi waves). What is clear, if you review the literature – which I have cited in the past – is that substantial regional inputs (by non-Hss) is now excluded and any input is unlikely. What is less clear is the structure of Hss exit from Africa and its waves.
And I maintian even for 82 answered it poorly.
OK, then, yeah, I’m out of date–I think The Third Chimpanzee is the most recent book I’ve read on the subject, and it’s 10 years old. It points out that interfertility looks unlikely on anatomical grounds (the hypothesis that Neandertal women carried their children for 12 months), but it doesn’t have any genetic data.
Thanks. I’ll remember.
Au contraire. Your average racist is a believer in “racial purity.” In spite of the real-world advantages that hybridization actually creates, all the racist doctrines I’ve seen place “purebred” members of their own race on a higher pedestal than anyone who has engaged in “miscegenation.” A racist Westerner would glom onto the idea you presented immediately, and say, “See? Those Asians are nothing but mongrels! Our blood is untainted!”
Side note: anyone else amused that a white rascist had the last name Coon? Makes me chuckle.
Nametag remarked:
Hmm, is that really true, or just an artifact of our cultural baggage? Sure, to a non-pigmented person a moderately pigmented person will look similar to an extremely pigmented person, but would not extremely pigmented people be more likely to notice the difference of a moderately pigmented person to themselves? And perhaps a moderately pigmented group look at both extremes as different? I.e. Native Americans comparing white Europeans and Africans to themselves. Isn’t it likely that the reason this is not commonly recognized is that culturally our heritage is from the White European perspective?