|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Human Races | ||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: That IS what race means -- at least that's how I interpretthe definition from the dictionary. quote: Racial concepts are founded in tribalism, and referring to itas 'nothing more than...' is inapproriate trivialisation. The reason that I expect there to be a genetic basis for raceis that 'tribalism' tends to include not breeding with (many) outsiders. What's slavery got to do with it -- almost all 'races' of manthroughout history have practiced slavery at some point.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: Then you are operating under an interpretation of the definition of "race" that is not widely shared (as WK pointed out) and are using a word that has other connotations than what you wish to ascribe to it. Better to dump it and all its baggage and move on to something that is biologically relevant.
quote: And maybe if you but !Kung bushmen on a colony on Mars for 500,000 yeras alone and came back they would have diverged to the point that a concept of a separate "race" or even subspecies would be appropriate. But that is not our current reality. I am still waiting for your example of an exclusive genetic trait that partitions along the lines of "race". Not something that varies among and within populations (since you claim this is irrelevant) but what genes do the Japanese have that a central european does not or vice versa? This is what is required by your own defintion of race in several of your posts, you claim the genetic data support this, yet I don't find that to be the case. I find that some alleles for the genes studied thus far tend to vary in frequency among different populations and some groups have higher numbers of alleles i.e. Africa as a whole. But a true genetic feature that you can map perfectly to "race"?
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
If I remember rightly Japanese cannot synthesis
alchohol dehydrogenase -- that would be a genetic trait present in most european races that is absent in japanese (unless I have mis-remembered that I suppose). Why should races lead to major divergence? I think it is jumping the gun, given our limited understandingof the link between the genome and the phenome, to state that there is no such thing as race -- I mean there's all that epigenetic stuff going on as well.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: As do other non-Japanese Asians...not to mention the japanese that do synthesize ADH. So this hardly separates out a japanese race from Asians or europeans for that matter.
quote: For there to be genetic traits that coincide with distinct races there would have to be more divergence than there is scene since all you get is a blur of alleles between groups with some more frequent in one population than another but not able to distinguish one from another.
quote: Epigenetics in this case is irrelevant to the race issue. By that definition you are a race since epigenetic profiles are subject to more variation and chance events during development than transmission of DNA from parent to offspring. In any case, while a lot may not be known, there is certainly no data appearing in favor of your idea of genetic traits separating "races" from one another. And it is a bit to extreme to offhandedly dismiss the hundreds of studies of human population genetics that have been done.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
But that there are representative issues such as
ADH synthesis is in line with what I'm saying -- just muddied by the inter-breeding that has gone on.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
How does it support what you are saying i.e. that there are genetic features unique to a given "race" if as you say it is "muddled" by all the interbreeding among humans? It hardly then argues that any unique "racial" features exist genetically to the point that it is a useful concept.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Mules exist, does that mean the concept of horses
and donkeys is not genetically viable? I'm not saying people are as different as that byany stretch, but just because the issue is complex doesn't make it irrelevant or even wrong. As for usefulness, it depends what you want to do. Members of certain lineages are more prone than othersto certain diseases and medical conditions, so one can target health care with limited funding more effectively. If the only material evidence at a crime scene is some DNAand one can narrow the field down to one demographic or another that will aid in police investigations by allowing the limited police resources to target likely matches first. Even if those are the only two uses for a genetic concept of raceit would be worth further investigation. And I know this might be an unpoular view, but if one wishedto breed for some 'racial' traits as seen by the masses, one could. Ultimately, by observation, that means that the culturallycommon view of racial features are heritable -- how is that contrary to a genetic concept of race. It's not about one unique trait, but a unique trait set. If that is heritable, then it must be genetic in origin. If it is genetic in origin then 'race' exists.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: Bad example. Mules are sterile and thus there is a species level separation at the F1 generation. No such barrier exists for ANY group of humans.
quote: This is done without recouse to "race". It is called population genetics and it will often not coincide with the cultural distinctions of "race".
quote: Again, the chances of finding a match or a demographic depend on the local population sampling and database, which will not superimpose on "race"
quote: And such studies are conducted and have produced useful information for both the medical and forensic fields..but have not produced a genetic "race" determinant.
quote: I don't see how this is relevant. One could breed humans that look like chihuahua's via artificial selection over many generations. All it says is that there is natural genetic and morphological variation in the species that can be selected for. Hardly any population on the planet that does not show this characteristic.
quote: Please show me a unique trait set of the "races" as you see them from the studies that have been cited in this thread. I think you will find it really difficult. Your family has a unique trait set..is the "Peter" family a race? I am genetically distinct from every living human on the planet..am I a race?
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: OK, I said I don't suggest that the distance is anything likethe same. The existence of Mules does not detract from the genetic separationbetween horse and donkeys, but throw in a Mule DNA sample in a blind test and it would confuse things ... maybe. It was taking an extreme to try to illustrate why I find thatparticular objection questionable. quote: Does the 'often' mean that sometimes it does, or is that justa wording thing? quote: So that work has been done?
quote: It might not call it 'race' for sensitive political reasons,does that mean it isn't related to race? quote: If you can breed for it, it is genetically determined. If it is genetically determined it will be detectable in the genome.
quote: From post 48:and from here: Page Not Found | Virginia State University "With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them." ... 'only 6%' is still an identifiable difference. From post 58:"Large genetic distances are observed among African populations and between African and non-African populations. The root of a neighbor-joining network is located closest to the African populations. These findings are consistent with an African origin of modern humans and with a bottleneck effect in the human populations that left Africa to colonize the rest of the world. Genetic distances among all pairs of populations show a significant product-moment correlation with geographic distances" ...Genetic distance correlates with geographical distance. "Thus, the Y-chromosome gene pool in the modern Egyptian population reflects a mixture of European, Middle Eastern, and African characteristics, highlighting the importance of ancient and recent migration waves, followed by gene flow, in the region." ...and Y-chromosomes reflect sets of 'racial' characteristics. "all systems show greater gene diversity in Africans than in either Europeans or Asians. Africans also have the largest total number of alleles, as well as the largest number of unique alleles, for most systems" ... references to 'unique alleles' and that some 'racial' typeshave more of them than others. from post 67:"A total of 146 SNPs were found in the total sample; 53 of them were observed only once (i.e., singletons) and 22 only twice (doubletons). The number of variant sites found in the African sample was 118, of which 68 (36 singletons, 15 doubletons, and 17 others) were not found in the Eurasian sequences (i.e., they were unique). In contrast, in the Eurasian sample only 78 variant sites were found and only 28 of them (17 singletons, 4 doubletons, and 7 others) were unique" ...again references to 'unique' variation in different 'racial'groups. The 'unique' differences between African and Eurasian are 68+28 (the unique ones) = 96 which is greater than within eurasians, but less than within African samples. from post 80:"A polymorphism in the coding sequence of the SRY gene was found by single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) and direct sequencing analysis. The new allele of the SRY gene, which is raised by a C-to-T transition in the 155th codon, was found in 24% of Honshu, 35% of Okinawan, and 51% of Korean males respectively, whereas it was not observed among 16 Caucasian and 18 Negroid males" Again unique differences between 'racial' groups. I cannot list what the unique differences are or may be -- butthe 'data' from the posts thus far all point to there being a real, genetic component to what we call 'race'. I partially agree that the usefulness is limited, and the politicallysensitive nature makes the subject difficult.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: considering they don't even have the same number of chromosomes and are different species I don't see your argument. I am not arguing that species don't exist and that there are not populations that are clearly distinct. I am arguing that different groups of humans are not this distinct.
quote: If I have a sample that yields a microsatellite pattern common among Nigerians (for the sake of argument) and it is found out that the sample came from a Nigerian then you have a match. Then you are stuck with all the cases where you get such a result and it does not come from a Nigerian. If humans were as different as species you would never get the eqivalent of say an Elephas maximus sequence from a Loxodonta africana sample.
quote: Um, and this is relevant how? Nobody could have imagined the phenotypes of dog breeds but it did not take much time to develope phenotype according to taste. How is this relevant to race?
quote: So as you march along Africa and suddenly people in Camaroon are more different from people in Iceland how do you say who belongs to what race? And note you bolded "conventional geographic" defintion of race whereas before you were using phenotype and cultural definitions of race.
quote: But even you have not given a consistent defintion of "race" so how is it useful? A genetic compenent of what we call "race" when the definition is sometimes socio-cultural, sometimes geographical, sometimes genetic....this is like arguing about what a "kind" means. All I get from the data is that the farther apart two populations are in H. sapiens the greater the genetic distance among alleles,the greater the difference in allele frequencies, and tremendous overlap regardless of what the social concepts of "race" claim.
quote: You clearly do not agree. You seem to think I should be able to go into the lab right now determine exactly what "race" any unmarked sample of blood belongs to. I would like to know exactly how and based on what. I have an Egyptian blood sample, a South African, a sample from New York, one from Paris, one from Munich, and mine...can I tell what race every one of these samples are genetically according to your criteria of "race" and what is a "race" to you. You have said it in the past but it has not been a fixed definition and since you brought up the mule example I tend to think you mean a rather large distinction among groups.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Re: Mules.
I already said I don't believe that humans are as differentfrom one another as horses are from donkeys. What I was trying to point to was that the existence of a mule (which is a genetic cross between horse and donkey) does not make the difference between horses and donkeys a matter of dispute. Close the genetic gap (though not totally) and what you have beensaying is that the same comparison is no longer allowed. That humans can inter-breed and so have genetic characteristicsthat are a mixture of the 'racial' types of their parents is glaringly obvious and says nothing about the potential for difference between the parents. Re: definition of race. How is a conventional geographic definition of race any differentfrom saying that people whose lineages originate in different locations are members of different races. Those differences show in the genome. The studies say 'African', 'Eurasion', 'Asian', 'Northern European',etc. as a racial categorisation. Re: breeding. Take a modern Asian (e.g Indian) population.Breed them (assuming no significant mutations) for a number of generations. Will you (do you think) get any offspring that would beconsidered African or European or Japanese? Re: Who belongs to what race: Typify the genome of a race based upon historical considerationof the likelihood of outsider influence on the gene pool. Compare.
quote: 'Do we not bleed?' -- One expects 'tremendous overlap'. Genetic distance between alleles and differences in allelefrequencies lead to differences in the overall character of the individuals involved. quote: You probably can (or find markers for a number of races) ifsomeone would do the work to find the markers in the first place. You've already pointed to some. Alleles that exist only inAfrican populations, or only in Asian, or only in European are all things that are mentioned in the reports that have been cited in this discussion. Question: Why do you dislike the idea of a genetically determinablerace? When I say I partially agree -- it's with the suggestion thatwhether there is or is not a genetically determined race is largely irrelevent .... but then, to most people, so is quantum physics.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: No and if I can get the link to work I will show you why below. But in summary, the two are not comparable. You have an interbreeding population or intermixing group of populations of the same species with humans versus horses and donkeys which are not interbreeding populations and are F1 infertile.
quote: Except that their parents and their parents parents etc etc. have been interbreeding for thousands of years so that you can no better say what "race" your parents are than you can say what "race" you are.
quote: So you would agree that a white South African who is as genetically distinct from a Nigerian as a black South African is from the same Nigerian belong to the same race. Which African "race" would that be considering that their are Africans that differ from each other more than they differ from non-Africans?
quote: Re: the first is a strawman. If I put a group of humans on the moon for many generations I could end up with a different species and I am not arguing that humans could not form sub-species or fully separate species over time...just that Homo sapiens has not and is tending to homogenize rather than diverge. RE: the second, considering the immense amount of interaction among and between populations historically, you have such a muddled mess I don't see where you are going to find your nice distinct categories.
quote: Actually, if the distinctions between groups merited "race" designation you would not expect tremendous overlap...lets see if this works below
If this worked, you will see that of the over 1000 human comparisons you get a hump. If you have a real genetic difference between groups you see that the pairwise comparisons separate out from one another i.e. chimps do not overlap with humans at all. (The neandertal is sort of irrelevant in this case since it is a single sample against thousands). Looking at the human distribution could you please identifiy for me where the japanese are?
quote: Is that enough to conclude race? I could find genetic markers that make YOU different from everyone else to..are you a race?
quote: I actually would not care if race was a true biological distinction. But that a fairy poorly defined concept bordering on "kinds" and that is used to distinguish people is trying to gain credibility by claiming it has a clear genetic basis. If I just say that Africans are all one race so I can just pick any African from anywhere for my next clinical study I will probably end up with a drug that is deadly or useless. Biological terms should have at least a high probability of being relevant or real to be applied and race is so blurry it makes defining species look like a cake walk.
quote: I think that most people identify heavily with social concepts of race at some level...hell, even Basque nationalists are constantly trying to prove they are a superior native Iberian "race". So I think it has a little more impact on peoples lives than pondering quantum physics.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
One of the emerging hypotheses about the divergence
that caused the ape-human separation is that there were NOT distinct separated populations, but a large, inter-mingling one that gradually over time drifted farther and farther apart genetically. The idea is that some common ancestor of humans and another of themodern apes could inter-breed and produce offspring. How far apart, while still being able to inter-breed, does apair of populations need to be before one considers them 'different'? quote: I'd tend to think that significant interbreeding between diversehuman populations has been going on for hundreds rather than thousands of years. Travel was much harder in the past, and 'tribalism' was adominant factor -- even the Egyptians and Romans tended to breed within their 'cultural group' (slaves probably got bred however the owners saw fit though). Even during my parents time travel and meeting people ofoverly diverse culture was rare (perhaps less so in the US I don't know) -- and inter-racial marriages were (for completely unsupportable reasons I add just in case) considered taboo. That's not to say that it hasn't happened, but that's why I say one needs to look to the history to unravel what the genomes are saying. quote: White south Africans come from Dutch lineages -- that's whyI mentioned 'lineage'. Black south Africans (if memory serves) are largely Bantu orZulu (two races in my opinion) and still different from Nigerians (Even culturally). I've already raised my objection to lumping all African'stogether for the purposes of the studies shown. quote: Not a strawman at all -- you are either missing or ignoring thepoint (I'll assume the former and try to be more clear). First, note that I said assuming no significant mutation, but sincewe don't no what a significant mutation might be let's say NO mutations. That means no amount of isolation could generate anything vastlydifferent to the original population. The question is would any single population (with no historyof outsider influence -- or very limited) produce children who appear to be of a different 'race' by the normal standard of assessment of race -- or any common assessment of race. quote: But we know a lot of the history of most areas -- so if we takesamples and charaterise them and find that a small percentage appear to have genomic matches with another perceived race BUT we know that there have been interactions then it's hardly suprising. Like the 'Japanese' (in the paper that you cited) having overlapswith Taiwanese etc. but not with some other races. quote: No that's species distinctions.
quote: No, I am an individual -- for racial distinction you would beconsidering populations and average values (kind of like a filtering out of noise). quote: I've already argued that Africa is too big, and the populationstoo diverse to be considered a single race. That has no bearing on whether race exists or not.
quote: The biology of it doesn't -- tell a white supremecist thathe is genetically no different to a Zulu warrior and he'll probably shrug and continue with his bigotry. Tell him he is genetically different and he'll say 'I knew that, what's the point' and then use it in arguments of superiority that the data doesn't even apply to. You cannot combat racism by denying race, nor will you inflameit by showing whether or not it has a basis in genetics.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: I'm sorry Peter but if you accept this then you should be comfortable with "kinds". You have shifted from defining race from lineages, to cultural associations, from saying Africans, Asians, Europeans are races to now saying Africa is too big and diverse to be a race. So I can call a "race" anything I want to and since individuals are not identical I am going to say every single human on the planet (assuming Clonaid has been unsuccessful) is genetically unique and is a race. And then tomorrow I will say that actually only the people in Grenwich Village on Tuesday nights are a race because I could find genetic support that the genetic constitution of that group may differ slightly from the constitution on Saturday nights. Is this really a useful concept? Considering the genetic distance graph I provided shows NO discernable distinction between different groups of humans the way it does for Neandertals, chimps or slime molds, I see no use in making a grossly exaggerated distinction among humans like "race". That humans have the potential to form races, species, genera, etc. given time, mutation, and selection is not at issue. At issue is whether this has occurred enough in the past to have separated us into distinct enough groups that could have been on potential trajectories toward speciation. I see no support for this. In fact we are one of the most genetically homogenous species of apes compared to chimps, gorillas and orang-utans. If you want to believe that the distinction between someone from Beijing is as different from a South African as a mountain gorilla from lowland gorilla then please show me the support. Considering virtually all data accumulated thus far points to an African origin (that is relatively recent) for modern humans, rather than races, every population outside of Africa is just an African sub-population if you want to cling to distinctions...and since relative to Africa, genetic diversity is much lower..we of european descent are just the leftover genetic post bottleneck dregs [This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 11-20-2003] [This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 11-20-2003]
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Lineages and cultural associations go hand in glove ....
lineages are formed within a socio-cultural context. I mention African, Asian, etc. partly because that's what'sin the posts/citation that I am talking about, and partly because it's an accesible terminology. I don't think that one could claim that all africans are part of the same race any more than all Europeans are. I'm not even discussing whether or not there is a use fora concept of race ... I don't consider useful application to be a criterion for studying and attempting to understand nature. 'Race' cannot apply to individuals though .... by definitionit requires a group. In regard to race and whether it has a genetic basis you havetwice not answered a very simple and relevant question. You claim it as a straw-man when it is directly relevant to the issue. Racial characteristics (i.e. those observed traits that leadone to say that's a caucasian or whatever) are heritable. Looking at non-coding regions may well provide informationconcerning the ultimate origin of humans, but it is not looking at those things that make different populations observably different. If you are looking for ducks don't go to the sahara. If you do subscribe to the out-of-Africa hypothesis (?) thenyou have to acknowledge that human populations have diverged. Swedes are not the same as Nigerians (apart from the Nigerian immigrants and their descendents of course ... or Swedes in Nigeria). The divergence might be small ... does that make it irrelevant? Maybe, if one could shed the fear (as I see it), that one willbe labelled a Nazi then a study of what makes human populations observably different may illuminate the ascent of man.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024