Prove to me that race exists.

[Rikurzhen]

If you want to refute the findings of the hgp, an endeavor which was subsequently confirmed by a similar project carried out by china's best scientists then go ahead. However, to deny truth due to a desire to hold onto an outdated way of thinking is nothing short of abdurd. Take your mind bsck from the devils, or perish with them...

You don't know what you're talking about. I do:

What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent. . . .

For each person in the study, the researchers examined 326 DNA regions that tend to vary between people. These regions are not necessarily within genes, but are simply genetic signposts on chromosomes that come in a variety of different forms at the same location.

Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group.

'This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background,' Risch said.​

 

[MalcolmPNewton]

If you want to refute the findings of the hgp, an endeavor which was subsequently confirmed by a similar project carried out byou chiona's best scientists then go ahead. However, to deny truth due to a desire to hold onto an outdated way of thinking is nothing short of abdurd. Take your mind bsck from the devils, or perish with them...

You don't know what you're talking about. I do:

What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent. . . .

For each person in the study, the researchers examined 326 DNA regions that tend to vary between people. These regions are not necessarily within genes, but are simply genetic signposts on chromosomes that come in a variety of different forms at the same location.

Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group.

'This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background,' Risch said.​

Y

 

[Rikurzhen]

If you want to refute the findings of the hgp, an endeavor which was subsequently confirmed by a similar project carried out byou chiona's best scientists then go ahead. However, to deny truth due to a desire to hold onto an outdated way of thinking is nothing short of abdurd. Take your mind bsck from the devils, or perish with them...

You don't know what you're talking about. I do:

What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent. . . .

For each person in the study, the researchers examined 326 DNA regions that tend to vary between people. These regions are not necessarily within genes, but are simply genetic signposts on chromosomes that come in a variety of different forms at the same location.

Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group.

'This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background,' Risch said.​

Y

Sorry, I don't speak letter.

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

Democrats are obsessed with race by deflection. They're still pissed off that we Republicans took all their slaves away. They've never forgiven us for that.

 

[Trigger Nash]

Science is interesting and all but just use your senses and draw a conclusion. People spend too much time on this minutiae.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Well, conservatards, go on. Do it.

Sorry, if you need proof there are different races on this planet you are too far gone for anyone to help.

hehe Ain't that the truth!
It's most often the white people who say there are not different races of people. Just goes to show how utterly foolish and stupid they've become.

No, that is not true. Races are not based on an integral factor, but a sliding scale of differences that graduate from the equatorial areas to the northern polar areas. If you started at the Congo and worked your way northward, you would find a gradual change in race among the indigenous populations. This is why the concept behind the meaning of the word 'race' was essentially the same as 'ethnicity' until about the 1800s, as I understand it. PEople spoke of the German or Irish race, etc, not so much the 'white' race.

The adoption of this white vrs black polarity came as Europeans found themselves in control of more an more colonial areas where white people were in control of vastly more black or much darker skinned people. To many people with an idealistic view of life, like missionaries and ideologues, this incongruity demanded explanation, and so they developed various theories on why whites were in charge across the globe. Since whites were pushing back the Ottoman Turks and dominating Caucasian India as well, darker skinned Caucasians were fit into this rubric also as non-white. For the deeply indoctrinated racist, most did not use the 'white' categorization and stuck to simply Caucasian. Hitler, for example, the iconic racist, considered the people of India to be white enough that he planned o conquer the subcontinent and import them to Germany to bulk up the population of Germany.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Latest Reputation Received
Thread Date Posted By Comment
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Prove to me that race... 06-29-2014 06:32 PM boedicca you are an idiot

Oh, OK conservatards, I completely see your point now. You have proven the validity of your arguments beyond all uncertainty. How wrong I was to ever doubt you.

This thread has a potential to inform us on evolution of races provided we remain civil and engage in objective dialogue. A while back I posted a link to an article, I think published in an Irish journal which revealed result of a genetic study. The study traced Irish and other western European ancestry to a common ancestor who lived in the Indian subcontinent around 25K years ago or so.

Could you perhaps dig up the link to this clearly racist and defamatory article? While I do not distrust your explanation of it, I would like to read what you have read so I can prove to you why you are wrong.

I hope admins will clean this thread up and move it to the Science and Technology forum so that we can have an informed discussion on this topic.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I believe the thread topic falls better into the niche-conspiracy theme of this board, given that the social construct of "race" is neither scientifically verifiable nor logically plausible.

Okay, Ritchie Maddow, lemme see if I understand your thinking.
In your world race is neither scientifically verifiable nor logically plausible.

How then, in the absence of race, do you deem a posted article as racist? If there is no race, how can something be racist or racism exist?

He is saying it is nonscientific and a social construct. He is right.

'Race' is simply a collection of ethnicities and why Dravidians are Caucasian and not black, why mixed white/black are black, but white/Asian are white has ZERO scientific basis, but is purely based on traditions that are codified into a pseudo-science that simply collapses under rigorous scientific scrutiny.

In any scheme of categorization, you group things by their most significant functional features, not the more shallow differences. For example we classify numbers as even or odd, whole or rational based on their function, not on whether the symbol used for them is straight or curved. When you go to look for a car, most people look for a make and model they want whose characteristics and function fit their needs, budget and life style. They don't start by saying what color paint job they want.

'Race' is similar. There is much more physiological similarity between a fat diabetic white man and a fat diabetic black man in the USA, than there is between the fat diabetic white man in the USA and a skinny white man in Germany. And since race is such a trivial factor in describing one's health and life, why would it be the basis for categorizing all the people's of the entire planet? Because it is the most visible difference, despite this making no more sense than categorizing all cars primarily by the color of their paint job.

While it is silly to say that race does not exist, it is entirely correct, IMO, to say that race is not a scientific concept.

 

[Meathead]

Classification is integral to science itself. Race is simply classification.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Classification is integral to science itself. Race is simply classification.

But is it classification based on rigorous scientific criteria or is it classification based on things that are based on cultural, ethnic and historical coincidences?

The former is science the latter is just arbitrary based on historical circumstances.

 

[Rikurzhen]

Classification is integral to science itself. Race is simply classification.

But is it classification based on rigorous scientific criteria or is it classification based on things that are based on cultural, ethnic and historical coincidences?

The former is science the latter is just arbitrary based on historical circumstances.

See post #101

 

[Meathead]

If DNA, skeletal remains and so on can establish the race of people, race indeed has a solid scientific bases.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Classification is integral to science itself. Race is simply classification.

But is it classification based on rigorous scientific criteria or is it classification based on things that are based on cultural, ethnic and historical coincidences?

The former is science the latter is just arbitrary based on historical circumstances.

See post #101

I do not question the ability of science and tech to ID the established racial criteria, I am saying that that the categorical criteria is not itself based on a scientific analysis, but is instead based on affirming classifications that were put in place due to historical circumstances.

Imagine that we had a colonization of the globe by people with predominately 6 fingers, and people with 6 fingers were considered a different race than people with 5 fingers. Then it is quite likely that our biggest racial criteria for determining race would be how many fingers you had and not skin color.

But if I took 1000 data descriptions of the health and life style of individual people and classified those more like each other based on things like their need for medical attention, drugs, athletic ability, intelligence, memory, diet, gut bacteria types, etc, the groupings would have zero similarity to racial categories.

Science did not develop racial categories, historical circumstances did.

 

[JimBowie1958]

If DNA, skeletal remains and so on can establish the race of people, race indeed has a solid scientific bases.

Science can distinguish race, yes, but the categories of race we use are not based on science.

For example, I can categorize cars by the color of their paint job, and use science to affirm my categorization by affirming which cars were which color.

But the criteria for categorizing the cars in the first place would not be scientific or functional at all.

 

[Rikurzhen]

Classification is integral to science itself. Race is simply classification.

But is it classification based on rigorous scientific criteria or is it classification based on things that are based on cultural, ethnic and historical coincidences?

The former is science the latter is just arbitrary based on historical circumstances.

See post #101

I do not question the ability of science and tech to ID the established racial criteria, I am saying that that the categorical criteria is not itself based on a scientific analysis, but is instead based on affirming classifications that were put in place due to historical circumstances.

Imagine that we had a colonization of the globe by people with predominately 6 fingers, and people with 6 fingers were considered a different race than people with 5 fingers. Then it is quite likely that our biggest racial criteria for determining race would be how many fingers you had and not skin color.

But if I took 1000 data descriptions of the health and life style of individual people and classified those more like each other based on things like their need for medical attention, drugs, athletic ability, intelligence, memory, diet, gut bacteria types, etc, the groupings would have zero similarity to racial categories.

Science did not develop racial categories, historical circumstances did.

You're wrong, sorry to say. Your thinking is developing but where you go wrong is in sorting by individual characteristic. This is akin to Jared Diamond's idiotic contention that we could group all people with lactose intolerance together and claim that they were a race, an artificially constructed race. And he should know better.

Race is not just skin color. Race is everything. So with your 1,000 trait example you're going to see correlations between the traits and this is WHERE we find race. Traits tend to ride along with each other. When we look at African traits, you don't see many red heads with freckles. You see skin color, you see hair texture, you see facial morphology, you see bone density, you see musculature differences, and you don't see the entire set duplicated in Swedes. That's just physical appearance, but it applies to brain size, we see personality differences, we see intelligence differences. On all of these traits though we have variation and different distributions and means.

Back to your 1,000 trait example. Take 1,000 people of various racial backgrounds. Now resort by individual traits. For trait #1, say sprinting ability, you're going to get a hodge-podge mixture of blacks, whites, and other groups, but you'll see that the distribution of talent isn't equal with lots of top performers from West Africa. Now look at Trait #2 long distance running. Different people will be rank ordered and they will be drawn from all racial groups. Now we have top performers coming from East Africa and people from other racial groups also being in the mix. For each trait, you get these weird "races" like Diamond's lactose intolerant race.

After you've done this 1,000 times and you analyze the rank orderings of each category you will find a clustering effect - the same people start appearing in the same groups and fairly close to each other in ranking and when you sort them into different corners of the auditorium your eyes tell you that you've sorted these people into racial groups as we know them.

Race is the whole package, all that we are, all that we're born with. How could it be anything else? Traits are passed down through families and race arises from reproductive isolation of a breeding group and this will entail a weak form on inbreeding amongst the families within that breeding group. Take two breeding groups who are far apart and so don't intersect, and you'll get divergence from each other. For the group in between the two distant groups, the groups on the clines, you will see very fuzzy borders on traits, best example being the gradual change seen from Han Chinese to the Central Asian peoples to the Near Eastern peoples to the Europeans. All different races but never a hard border. However, they are identifiable from each other because the transitions are never completely smooth.

This means that scientific methods can isolate people into continental racial groupings, right down to village racial groupings and now we're talking about nano-races in the abstract.

In one respect, you're correct, history made racial groups, not science because the science formulation doesn't make any sense as a causal factor. However, science can identify what history has made.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Classification is integral to science itself. Race is simply classification.

But is it classification based on rigorous scientific criteria or is it classification based on things that are based on cultural, ethnic and historical coincidences?

The former is science the latter is just arbitrary based on historical circumstances.

See post #101

I do not question the ability of science and tech to ID the established racial criteria, I am saying that that the categorical criteria is not itself based on a scientific analysis, but is instead based on affirming classifications that were put in place due to historical circumstances.

Imagine that we had a colonization of the globe by people with predominately 6 fingers, and people with 6 fingers were considered a different race than people with 5 fingers. Then it is quite likely that our biggest racial criteria for determining race would be how many fingers you had and not skin color.

But if I took 1000 data descriptions of the health and life style of individual people and classified those more like each other based on things like their need for medical attention, drugs, athletic ability, intelligence, memory, diet, gut bacteria types, etc, the groupings would have zero similarity to racial categories.

Science did not develop racial categories, historical circumstances did.

You're wrong, sorry to say. Your thinking is developing but where you go wrong is in sorting by individual characteristic. This is akin to Jared Diamond's idiotic contention that we could group all people with lactose intolerance together and claim that they were a race, an artificially constructed race. And he should know better.

Race is not just skin color. Race is everything. So with your 1,000 trait example you're going to see correlations between the traits and this is WHERE we find race. Traits tend to ride along with each other. When we look at African traits, you don't see many red heads with freckles. You see skin color, you see hair texture, you see facial morphology, you see bone density, you see musculature differences, and you don't see the entire set duplicated in Swedes. That's just physical appearance, but it applies to brain size, we see personality differences, we see intelligence differences. On all of these traits though we have variation and different distributions and means.

Back to your 1,000 trait example. Take 1,000 people of various racial backgrounds. Now resort by individual traits. For trait #1, say sprinting ability, you're going to get a hodge-podge mixture of blacks, whites, and other groups, but you'll see that the distribution of talent isn't equal with lots of top performers from West Africa. Now look at Trait #2 long distance running. Different people will be rank ordered and they will be drawn from all racial groups. Now we have top performers coming from East Africa and people from other racial groups also being in the mix. For each trait, you get these weird "races" like Diamond's lactose intolerant race.

After you've done this 1,000 times and you analyze the rank orderings of each category you will find a clustering effect - the same people start appearing in the same groups and fairly close to each other in ranking and when you sort them into different corners of the auditorium your eyes tell you that you've sorted these people into racial groups as we know them.

Race is the whole package, all that we are, all that we're born with. How could it be anything else? Traits are passed down through families and race arises from reproductive isolation of a breeding group and this will entail a weak form on inbreeding amongst the families within that breeding group. Take two breeding groups who are far apart and so don't intersect, and you'll get divergence from each other. For the group in between the two distant groups, the groups on the clines, you will see very fuzzy borders on traits, best example being the gradual change seen from Han Chinese to the Central Asian peoples to the Near Eastern peoples to the Europeans. All different races but never a hard border. However, they are identifiable from each other because the transitions are never completely smooth.

This means that scientific methods can isolate people into continental racial groupings, right down to village racial groupings and now we're talking about nano-races in the abstract.

Great post, but I disagree. I think that if you took the 1,000 traits and grouped them, you would come up with something along the lines of 'tropical skinny', 'tropical fat', 'temperate skinny', etc as these groups show the latitude their origins are from, not necessarily their race. For example the presence of melanin, resistance to malaria and affinity to certain foods would group people across the Old World between the tropical latitudes, no matter what race they are. And body morphology says more about a persons health than their skin color does.

Consider Dravidians of India and 'blacks' from Ethiopia. Dravidians are Caucasian, darker than Ethiopians and one of the oldest purest Caucasian ethnics known. What sense does any of that make?

In one respect, you're correct, history made racial groups, not science because the science formulation doesn't make any sense as a causal factor. However, science can identify what history has made.

Then we are essentially in complete agreement.

 

[Meathead]

Skin color is superficial to race.

What is tangible exists. So it has always been. Poodles, Shetland ponies, and tabby cats exist and can be crossbred within their species. I can't imagine any mammalian species should defy classification, or anything else for that matter.

 

[Rikurzhen]

Great post, but I disagree. I think that if you took the 1,000 traits and grouped them, you would come up with something along the lines of 'tropical skinny', 'tropical fat', 'temperate skinny', etc as these groups show the latitude their origins are from, not necessarily their race. For example the presence of melanin, resistance to malaria and affinity to certain foods would group people across the Old World between the tropical latitudes, no matter what race they are. And body morphology says more about a persons health than their skin color does.

You understand that science isn't like politics, where people can disagree on principles. If I stated that the Sun was a star, you'd have no basis to disagree and call it a planet. You'd be wrong in doing so.

Racial groups don't sort by latitude. They develop due to selection effects, mutations and genetic drift within their regions. Latitude creates some environmental similarities but this climate doesn't create uniform responses in humans along the same latitude. First a mutation needs to arise. Next the mutation needs to provide benefit in reaction to the environment and the benefit needs to be strong enough to confer reproductive advantage. Then the mutation will modify over time simply from being passed through the generations. Each factor here is independent, meaning that climate similarities can't conjure up a particular mutation to order in multiple locations around the world. Sometimes independent adaptation arise. For instance there are 3 different adaptations for high altitude living, one developed in Africa, one in the Himalayas and the last in the Andes.

Consider Dravidians of India and 'blacks' from Ethiopia. Dravidians are Caucasian, darker than Ethiopians and one of the oldest purest Caucasian ethnics known. What sense does any of that make?

It doesn't have to make sense. It simply has to arise and meet the conditions I specified above. Remember this also, there was more than one migration out of Africa, so we're not talking about direct lines between all population groups.

There was a good documentary made for the general public called Journey of Man and hosted by population geneticist Spencer Wells. I recommend it for the broad brush strokes of what happened, though it is a bit dated in some respects. Science does move forward.

 

[80zephyr]

The human genome project proved there is no such thing as race. Only devils cling to the race concept because it caters to their warped sense of self and serves their elitist agenda. By the way, not all whites are devils and there are quite few black devils. One is currently president.

Hmm. What if I use a government source to prove race exists?

Understanding race and human variation ... Am J Phys Anthropol. 2009 - PubMed - NCBI

Notice the title of the study?

Understanding race and human variation: why forensic anthropologists are good at identifying race.

So, how can race not exist when forensic anthropologists are good at identifying it?

And why is my font so large?

Mark