Human Races

As it turns out there's really no such thing as race. For instance they did a study in Brazil (a very racially mixed society) and found that there were no biological or genetic markers that consistently matched what "race" a person identified or was identified as.It isn't really a surprising finding. Consider this: You may be taller than other people. (I am.) In fact your entire family may be taller than the average person where you live, or even your entire block. Does that mean that you're of a different "race"? Not likely. Humans vary, and not one "race" of people varies outside of the normal range of variation for individual humans.When you try to construct a taxonomy of race, you also come into problems. Every time you propose one kind of race - African, or Caucasian - you run into people - lots of them - who are right smack in the middle between that race and another. Like the Finnish, or Arabs.Race is a culturally constructed phenomenon, not a biological one. There's no scientific "test" for race. Black people may have longer legs on average, but taller people usually get paid more on average - and being black is no more likely to make you taller than being taller automatically means you'll be paid more than the short guy.I mean, how would you go about determining if two different people are of a different race?

In the basic sense of natural selection, yes, probably. Africans have near-universally dark skin because it's so sunny where they are, and too hot for clothing. Therefore persons with extremely light skin did not leave as many children as dark-skinned folk.So, yes, the climate did influence which traits are more likely to be prevalent in a given geographical area. No, we're nowhere near that different, as far as I know. On the other hand I don't know that there's any genetic test that will distinguish between different breeds of dogs, either.Think of it this way - what would be the point of a system of "race" classification? Is it in any way predictive? (Not at all.) You may call that guy "Indian" or "Arab" or even "Black" but for all you know he's just a white guy with a tan. I have a friend, you'd swear he was from Spain - very swarthy, black hair - but he's of 100% Swedish ancestry. He's just got dark skin.Not only is race non-existent, it's useless.

Well, it isn't. The capability to tan is, and your basal levels of melanin, are, but there's no difference physically between a man who has dark skin because he was born that way and one who has a deep tan. It's the same pigment. Quick - explain to me the difference in facial structure between these two people:
There's hardly even a difference in skin color. In fact I'd be surprised if anybody could accurately determine the race of these two people if they weren't already famous actresses.[the images show up in the preview, but not in the post. Curses! Admins, can you help?]fixed photo urls and deleted now extraneous links - The Queen
[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 10-18-2003][This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 10-18-2003]

That's what I'm saying, though. You can hardly talk about a "black" facial structure if somebody can be considered black and not have it.Any time you can hold up two people of different race and say "they're different for such-and-such reasons, so those differences must be racial" I can find to people considered to be of the same race who are different in the same way, or two people of different race who lack that difference.See how race is meaningless? The distinction is only in your mind. Yes, there's average physical differences between groups identified as different "races". What I'm trying to show you is that those differences aren't sufficient to define race. Sure, but there's Caucasians and Africans with slanted eyes. These aren't fundamental things that separate races - they're normal variation within the human species.

And of course at this point we're only talking about people who identify as one race. What about people of mixed race? Perhaps you could tell me off the top of your head what race Tiger Woods belongs to? Or Mariah Carey?

Yes, I realize that. It's possible to "define" some kind of "pure" conception of race. The problem then is that, just as in the real world you'd never be able to find a pure white color or a pure black color, you could never find a person who was purely of one race.So what's the use? Why define something that won't ever exist? If no person could be of "pure" race, why bother to talk about it? Now, you might wish to find persons who are "closest" to purity, but how could you define racial "purity" if no human can obtain it? What criteria would you use to determine the "core characteristics" of the "pure" race?This is why racism is so unscientific. Ultimately it comes right back to one's preconceptions about race. I'm not accusing you of being racist, just trying to point out that your thought process has already been tried by racists, and been found to be fruitless. If racists - who could be relied upon to have the most to gain from finding a metric for racial "purity" - can't find it, it's reasonable to assume it doesn't exist. How can you have interracial mating if there's no such thing as race?The words you're looking for are "reproductive isolation". When you take members of the same species and isolate them into multiple groups, each of those groups becomes a new species over time. This is true of all life, and has nothing to do with race. If you took 2 identical groups from the same "race" - from the same big family, even - and isolated them, you'd have a new species given enough time. On the way to that, you might find that members of one of the groups all share a characteristic that the other group universally lacks, despite an ability to interbreed, so I guess you could call them different "breeds" or "races" at that point. But the human race was nowhere close to that, not even before the modern ease of interbreeding.

Like all organisms, it depends on a combination of factors, including how long it takes to get a new generation, how often new mutations occur in each offspring, and specific environmental factors that could speed or slow speciation. By "species" (by the way) I assume you're referring to the standard Biological Model of Species, where any two groups of organisms that do not give rise to fertile crossbreeds are considered separate species...You'd have to ask an actual biologist, like Minnemooseus or Mammuthus. Perhaps they could enlighten us?

What's the difference between a physical difference between two people due to race, and one that's not? What if they're the same difference? Suppose I'm taller than you. How would you tell the difference between me being taller than you because I'm of a different race than you, and me being taller than you just because I'm taller?This is why race is useless. It's not a qualitative difference. It's a culturally-constructed sorting structure with a lot of holes.

The question you're not addressing is: "Of what use is race"?

Yes. Because any time you know two animals are in different genuses (geni?) you know that they're in different species, for one thing. You know that they're morphlogically different in specific ways that are always true.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. Not quite correct - they can guess race. Not determine it. A sampling of Brazilians of almost every race informs us that there's no genetic markers that reliably determine race. Now, maybe that has nothing to do with bone structure. But there's more percieved races than can be determined by bone structure alone, unless you're so sure that a forensic anthropologist could tell the difference between a Slav and a Saxon. Nope. Nowhere near that long.

You were doing great with this: But then you went here: How the hell does this make any sense? Like, my skin has more melanin than you, so automatically I like fried chicken and watermelon? What you're talking about are stereotypes, and they're not generally true. Consider your own race. (Something tells me you're probably caucasian.) What do you think you like, personally, because you're of a certain race? What aspect of race do you think makes you like stuff? So why do we have to say "he's black"? Why can't we just say "his ancestors are from Zaire"? My ancestors are from Italy. Yours may be from Poland, for instance. How does it help matters to lump us all as "caucasian"?

Well, you'll have a tough time arguing it without the presentation of a source, for instance.What "racial differences" are you talking about? Given all the differences between two arbitrary human beings, how do we know which differences are normal variation and which are racial? Even if there appears to be a difference in the averages between two populations, how do we know that they're significant, especially if the difference is within the normal variation among human beings?

Sure. But people who are left-handed don't live nearly as long as right-handers, statistically.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.)

But are they unmistakeable? Why don't you tell me the race of this person: No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.tvtome.com/images/people/0/7/14-4771.gifSure. 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.)[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 10-26-2003]

Then again I ask you to identify the race of not-so-noted actor Wentworth Miller. Should be easy for you, right? Use a Google Image search to see who I'm talking about. If you get the same results as I do, it's the guy who's holding the baby dinosaur.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 10-27-2003]