|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 63 (9162 total) |
| |
popoi | |
Total: 916,385 Year: 3,642/9,624 Month: 513/974 Week: 126/276 Day: 23/31 Hour: 0/0 |
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Human Races | |||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Now, for the last time, what distinguishes one culture from another? Your repeated non sequiturs grow wearisome. Where did I say that there were multiple cultures that could be distinguished between? Be specific.
‘Subjective terms’ (i.e. hot/cold) do not exist while ‘objective’ terms do? Okay, what distinguishes ‘subjective’ terms from ‘objective’ ones? Obviously, their objectivity. Do I need to tell you what that means, or can I trust you to look at a dictionary?
Europeans who measure temperature in Celsius or Americans who measure temperature in Farenheit? Obviously, both. The systems are equivalent.
32 degrees Farenheit or 0 degrees Celsius? Both. They're equivalent.
Congrats, you just demolished the foundation of your own argument. I disagree. Since my argument was that race has no meaning biologically, you'll have to show me a biological meaning to race in order to refute me. Otherwise I'm forced to consider your argument a non sequitur.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
LMAO social constructionists are anti-essentialists who REJECT objective meaning PERIOD. Do you think that it's possible that social constructions exist without all of reality being a social construction? You don't appear to. I do. Objective reality clearly exists, but race is not a part of that reality.
Crashfrog here asserts that race is a ‘socially constructed’ category with no biological meaning. Crashfrog then goes on to state he/she does not even know what social constructionism is Maybe that's because it's possible to argue that some thing are social constructions without arguing that everything is a social construction? Everybody seems to get that but you, I guess.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1499 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: They didn't, did they? I think most europeans were stil in a very low-state ofcivilisation during the Egyptian, babylonian, and chinese civilisations ... and India had a high culture well before Europe ... possibly one of the oldest known with the Indus valley etc. I don't think civilisation concepts are in any way meaningfulin regards to race though.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1499 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
[I deleted something that has been touched on already]
I still don't think that civilisation is a useful concept,especially since different cultures will identify different criteria for 'civilised'. [This message has been edited by Peter, 03-08-2004]
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1499 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: I feel the need to put a disclaimer on this before I start: I do not agree with any inclusions of 'civilisation', 'culture'ect. in the question of whether 'race' is a biological reality. I am considering biology only. I also do not believe that it is possible to claim thatan individual of group is 'superior' to another in any global sense ... one person may be a superior athlete to another, or a superior mathematician, or craftsperson, or roofer, BUT no absolute superiority exists and everyone deserves equal treatment. OK. Disclaimer over. You have said a number of times that race does not existbiologically. One reason was the 'more difference within than between' argument. You are aware that the studies upon which those results areclaimed discount coding sequences, and specifically state that this is the case if we discount the parts of the genome that govern phenotypic traits commonly used as racial identifiers. It is also evident that things most often used as racial markers(like skin colour, hair type, bone structure, eye shape, etc.) are heritable. Genetic studies show correlation between genetic similarityand geographic separation even when the coding sequences are ignored. It IS possible to identify (for example) a sub-saharan africanfrom others by genome alone (I posted reference to things like this previously). Whether it matters that this 'race' exists or not is anothermatter, but I find it odd that there is such an insistence on it's absence, when the genetic evidence does not support that. [This message has been edited by Peter, 03-08-2004]
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
They didn't, did they? Good point. And I knew that. I don't know what my problem was when I wrote that post. But thanks for pointing that out.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
It is also evident that things most often used as racial markers (like skin colour, hair type, bone structure, eye shape, etc.) are heritable. Yeah, but most people percieve that somebody is of a certain race not because they have all of those traits, but rather because they're a decendant of somebody of that race. For instance, what makes a person "black"? Most people would say the skin color. But it's entirely possible to pick a person considered "white" and a person considered "black" and have the white person's skin actually be darker than the black person's. But the black person is still "black" because his family is seen as black. And any children that person had with a white person would be considered black, not white. Race doesn't seem to follow the same rules as any other inheritable trait. I guess what I'm saying is that while the markers that people associate with race may be heritable and genetic, there's no marker where the presence of it always equals a certain race and the absence of it never equals that race. See what I mean? Dark skin doesn't always mean black, and light skin doesn't always mean not-black. Almond-shaped eyes doesn't always mean asian, and round eyes doesn't always mean non-asian. So what's the use of characterizing people into "races" if that characterization is always going to be essentially subjective? Race just isn't a useful characterization, biologically. On the other hand sometimes it makes sense to say "your ancestors were african, therefore there's a higher chance that you have such-and-such a gene." But I maintain that that's an entirely different situation than race.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1499 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
So, because some people do the categorisation wrong, there
is no such thing as biological race in humans? I don't think racial categorisation IS necessarily subjective,although from your post I think we may have a different idea about what constututes someone who could be called 'black' ... but that's not what I use to refer to races. I tend to think of them along the lines of 'of african origin', or 'of european origin'.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
So, because some people do the categorisation wrong, there is no such thing as biological race in humans? No. Because nobody can do it right, there's no such thing as biological race in humans.
I tend to think of them along the lines of 'of african origin', or 'of european origin'. But even those are arbitrary. Why "african" and "european"? Why not "Nigerian" and "Teutonic"? Especially since all the europeans originally came from Africa? How long do your ancestors have to have lived somewhere before you can say they're from there? Why not get even more specific and say that somebody was of "London" origin? I think it can be worthwhile to consider somebody as part of a group with origins in a certain area, but that's hardly the same thing as "race", and I think it shows in the specific cases of people of "mixed" ancestry. [This message has been edited by crashfrog, 03-10-2004]
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1499 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Scientific American had an article on race, where it pointed outthat one study was able to identify, by genome alone, african individuals from european and asian. The categorisation IS possible, but why take laymen inability todo it right as evidence against the concept of genetic race, or even that biologists only have the first clues. Opinion is not an argument against anything.
quote: Because genetic studies show a measureable difference betweengenomes of individuals from those regions. Genomic difference and geographic separation ARE correlated.
quote: I would have no problem with that, so long as Nigerian wheredistinguishable from other Africans, or Tuetonics from other europeans. quote: The 'out-of-africa' hypothesis has problems of it's own. I'mnot convnced that that claim can be made with any certainty just yet. Still, race is about divergence so that would make littledifference. quote: Long enough for the fixation of a genomic difference that isa populational separator. quote: One could, if one could find a 'London' population that hadexisted for sufficient time. quote: Mixed ancestry has little or no bearing on the issue of race.
[QUOTE]
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Scientific American had an article on race, where it pointed out that one study was able to identify, by genome alone, african individuals from european and asian. I'm familiar with a study in Brazil that was unable to identify race by genome alone.
Because genetic studies show a measureable difference between genomes of individuals from those regions. Reigion isn't race. If you're considered black, you're considered black no matter how long you've lived in Detriot.
Mixed ancestry has little or no bearing on the issue of race. To the contrary - it has plenty to do with race, because it's a percieved feature of race. Now, if what you're saying is that there's no biological basis for percieved features of race, then we agree.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1499 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: This relates directly to my suggestion that mixed-raceindivdiuals have no bearing on the concept or existence of a genetically determined race. The population of Brazil is extraordinarily mixed, so it isa correct indicator that with sufficient interaction race would be erradicated -- not that race is not a biological reality. quote: Apart from native americans, there are no indigenous Americanpopulations ... indeed none older than, what, 500 (ish) years. This makes America a poor choice for consideration of biological race. The level of inter-race interactions has been remarkably low(though not non-existent) and I would not tend to think of american negroes as 'african' in any sense (although some communities do hence 'African American'). quote: I'm clearly not saying that, since I have referred a few timesto the simple observation that the perceived features of race are heritable.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I'm clearly not saying that, since I have referred a few times to the simple observation that the perceived features of race are heritable. Clearly some of them are, yes. But what I'm saying is that those perceived features of the cultural concept of race that are actually heritable are not sufficient by themselves to validate the cultural concept of race from a biological standpoint.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
neil88 Inactive Member |
I just read a book called Mapping the Human Genome. It looks at genes, languages, cultures and human forms worldwide in an attempt to explain human origins and migrations.
They only looked at indigenous people and languages etc. One problem they had was that with travel these days, there has been so much intermixing of races that it is getting harder to distinguish pure indigenous types. They conclude that there are obvious differences between different races which are related to adaptation to climate, Skin colour can be correlated with the intensity of sunlight in certain areas.( White Australians are not adapted to their climate thus skin cancer s high.) Resistance to diseases is also looked at - like malaria and blood groups. The Bushmen of Southern Africa are interesting. They have some Asian characteristics. So I would say that we are all of the same species, but we have become adapted to varying degrees to the different climates we have migrated into over the last 100,000 years or more.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1487 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
One problem they had was that with travel these days, there has been so much intermixing of races that it is getting harder to distinguish pure indigenous types. Which is more evidence that race, as people think of it culturally, simply doesn't exist. Imagine if you will the situation of total intermixing. According to science, that would mean that there were no races. According to racists, that would mean that all human beings are black. I can't think of any better evidence that there's no biological reality to the cultural model of race.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024