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Author | Topic: Human Races | |||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: I thought I had ... I suggest that commonly held view on raceultimately correlate to geographical ancestry. I've just read the Scientific American article mentioned too,and there are results there that found that Alu's can be used to make genetic groupings that correspond precisely with conintent of origin. With 60 Alus one can get a high correlation, using 100 Alusone can get 'almost 100%' correlation. The experiment correctly grouped Sub-saharan africans, Europenasand East Asians by genetic means alone. It is also reported that investigations have concluded thatAfrican-Americans have 20-100% West-African origins ... so there's your answer about dealing with inter-breeding .. i.e. you can still find the markers.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: The switch is just in reference to the SA article. That's whatthe author there reports. The fact that they can say that someone is 20% West Africansuggests that the level of inter-breeding is interpretable up to a point. Apparently it is harder to differentiate between populations fromthe Indian continent, due to extreme inter/out-breeding. I agree, logically, that with sufficient levels of inter-breedingthen racial distinctions will disappear. I don't believe this to be a global norm at this stage, however. The succesful identification of 'racial' group from geneticgrouping suggests a biological basis for race ... but I concede that that is one based upon a 'geographic origin' interpretation of race. I believe that this is ultimately where all racial distinctions are founded.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Was the other one of those 'both' me? When have I been condescending, and what do you considerevasive in my responses? quote: I have not equated race with either species or sub-species. I have specifically stated several times that I view allhumanity to be of one species, and that sub-species is a much larger distinction than that of race. The closest biological term in use elsewhere I have suggested is 'strain' ... and this is the understanding of 'race' used by horticulturalists in connection with plants. I have, in connection with inter-breeding, questioned therelevance of the existence of multi-racial individuals by asking if the existence of mules meant horse and donkeys where the same. The logic being used is identicle, and the large differencebetween these animals exposes the error in reasoning. quote: I have also never said that human races where diverging, ormade any comment on the future. I have said that current populations show differences suggestiveof divergence in that past. I have also said that with sufficient inter-breeding these differences will disappear, but that does not appear to be the current norm. Variation that correlates with geography also correlates withrace, when race is founded in geographical origin of a lineage. The level of admixture is suggestive of nothing, beyond thatpopulations have out-bred. It cannot be used predictively unless we have a time series and can see a trend. If humans are BECOMING homegenous, then that means that theyaren't now. quote: The SA article suggests that even loose racial concepts can helpin targetting drugs. Health services in the UK and US are using self-declared ethnicity to aid in theraputic decision making and finding this beneficial. quote: I don't know of a population where this is the case. Even on theIndian continent it is possible to identify that as the geographic origin, it just cannot be broken down into smaller geographic regions in the way that the Sub-saharan Africans can be identified from their genomes. quote: I never said it did. What I have been objecting to is the claim that genomic datafrom human populations indicates that race has no biological reality. I still cannot see how this result has been popularised, whenthe genetic data does not actually support it. My specific, main objection has been to the suggestion thatmore variability within a group than between that group and another can be used to infer a lack of 'race'.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Just noticed this again, and read it fully ...
quote: Where it says 'a taxonomic category (as a subspecies)', I don't thinkit means race == sub-species, but that sub=species is an example of a taxonomic category. With that in mind, this ties in with my defintion for race. There is genetic evidence for my definition. Races are NOT sub-species though.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Fair enough, no argument necessary here.
I was simply pointing out my view on the race-subspeciesquestion. My view is that race is less marked than sub-species interms of differences. That's all ... just trying to make my position and posts more transparent.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 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.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 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]
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 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]
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 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'.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 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.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 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.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
So, if heritability of traits used to identify races
doesn't mean that there is some biological reality to 'race' as a concept, what does it mean? Yes, I understand that there are plenty of bigots who wouldsingle someone out for having pear-shaped butt cheeks if it served their agenda ... but not everyone in every culture who has a notion of racial differences is a racist.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
If it would take total inter-mixing to cause science to
claim there are not races, that implies this is not the current situation. If there were no race, there would be no racism -- the bigotswould find something else to go after. I'm afraid, in the context of this discussion, one has to exclude extremist views and concentrate on the majority view of race ... most people, believe it or not, are not racist.
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