Human Races

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None of that applies to race. Knowing someone's "race" tells you absolutely nothing about them. If I know an organism is of genus Canis that it has pointy teeth, a muzzle, and claws that don't retract. If I know a human is of race "African" or "black", what do I really know? That they have dark skin? Not always. That they have broad noses? Not always. That they have big d*cks? Not even close to always.

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Well, given the mechanism of genetics, you can expect geographically isolated groups of individuals to have different frequencies of certain alleles after a period of time. What does this have to do with any notions of racism, superiority, inferiority, or any other social interpretation.. nothing really. We're all different.It may certainly be that there is more variation between individuals in a population than between populations overall, but that doesn't mean that there are not distinct groupings of human beings which share a similar set of certain allele frequencies or fixations of a small set of more or less arbitrary genes.But who cares? We should be mature enough to admit that races do indeed exist. So some of us have a greater frequency of a certain gene or genes which perhaps increase pigmentation, or a fixed gene possibly which is infrequent or perhaps non existent (unlikely) in another population which slightly changes facial bone structure.What does all this mean? Nothing really other than "races" as groups of individuals have slightly different and visibly recognizable rates of expressions of a few alleles.[This message has been edited by Rationalist, 10-25-2003]

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But I don't see a Census box for handedness. I don't see scholarships for handedness. (Maybe there is one, but there's a lot less.)

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Ethnic groups don't necessarily need to be defined by race. It's just a convenient marker for coalitional rivalry. In a pinch however any particular recognizable characteristic will do.Ever notice how gang members will wear colored bandanas?In short, human beings find it useful to separate themselves into gangs (coalitional groups). It's good to have lots of friends, but its pointless to have too many. Those who are not your friends might as well be your enemies. Given this, race is a natural set of unmistakable visual cues that come in quite handy when forming coalitional groups.However, if races didn't exist, human beings would use some other difference. They wouldn't use handedness though, as it's too evenly spread in the population in every region. Religion makes a good coalitional signature though.

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Sure. But if we can eliminate race, then we're left with differences that largely, can be altered by choice. (Sexual preference is obviously an exception.)

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Yes, but human nature can't really be altered by choice to any great extent, so it doesnt' make any difference. The best we can hope for is to keep social and world economics in the "cooperatation" mode and keep it from slipping into a perception of "zero sum" as best we can. When it does slip into a zero sum condition, that's when all hell inevitably breaks loose.As far as recognizing the race of another person, I think it's relatively easy. But hey, maybe that's just me.