Part of what I like abut Israel is actually meeting the crazies ... the cheredi. As with the fundies here, they are .. imo .. suffering from a psychosis.
Isn't it odd that we live in a world where anxiety as a treatable illness, anger is a disorder, alcoholism is a bad disease, but but belief in
a superhuman, demonic dictator, amoral being who kills his only begotten son is considered normal? Well, at least in Israel the crazies are my own.
We had a funny experience one day in Jerusalem. A smallish fellow, peyes and scraggly beard, dressed in medieval black and sweltering clothes with the deepest dark eyes came over to get me to doven with him. I do not mind this, though an atheist, I accept worship as part of tradition. But the guy .. he looked out of place. Turns out he is an Afghani Jew who had "accepted" membership in a cheredi sect. I wonder if there any Ethiopian Jews with dreadlocks (peyes) and fedorahs?
BTW .. do you know the Catholic meaning of NY Day? It is, vu denn, the feat of the holy prepuce! .. they celebrate a bris! Imagine an excavation in Bethlehem. An old synaguogue has been found, dating from the E year (as in CE and BCE). In the synaguougue are found an ossurary within which are the tools of a Mohel and small fragmetn of human skin, dried out over the millenia. ..................................
Monday, December 25, 2006
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Sunday, December 24, 2006
Of Races .. a dialog
This is a dialog between me and a fellow named Richard Harris. The exchange, began, of all places, on a photography website. I am not sure, but suspect Richard is a pretty literate non scientist who has read too muych about how the term "race" has been misused. I began the responsa because he seems sincere and because I feel that polical correctness can poison science by blocking the use of terms.
As one example, I was very fortunate to take some of my psychology education form Richard Hernstein. Unfortunately for him, Professor Hernstein had the gall t make an effort to look at the role fo race in intelligence. A hard subject, difficult enough without the assorted strains of bigotry but no less reasonable than attempting to measure anything else. Anyhow, Prof. Hernstein had the grace to die young, but not before he was pilloried and verbally tar ans feathered by none other than Steven J. Gould. Now, I have a disclosure to make. I am a card carrying memebr of the Society of Steves and contribute money in Gould's memory to the fight against creationist obscurism. But Gould was as blind as a Fallwell on this issue. His book, the mis-measure of intelligence, is full of major statistical errors and ad hominem attacks.
In my own world as a scioentist, this topic is bizar. Ont he one hand the NIH takes "race" seriously and demands "race" data in our studies. On the other hand, when I have suggested obtaining valid genetic data on race, I get yelled at. Sad.
Here is the post:
___________________________________________________________________________________
First,
No, you can not use any arbitrary criterion and do the same thing as "race." There have been real isolation events in human history just as with Darwin's Finches. As a semite I am closer to an Arab genetically than to an Irishman. We are both close than either of us would be to an Amerind, the Amerind from Tierra del Fuego is closer to an Incan than she is to a Manchu, etc.
Choke points occur when small numbers of humans are isolated .. the ancestors of most Europeans were a small group of folks living in the Urals about 15k yrs ago. About the same time a choke point occured in Nigeria .. qand their ancestors today comprise southern Africa .. the "Blacks."
These distinctions are real enough that when we set up panels of DNA to collect genetics markers (SNPs) we try to ise a mix of "races." to get the greatest diversity. If we SNPs the genome with just Euros we would NOT get an adequate sample.
Second,
The term is, of course, often misused. Here in the US I have argued against the way we classify people for medical studies as Black or White. it is not that I do not think there is value in this, it is that I know that the &(*%^% slave owners intentionally bred Africans vs. Amerinds. That plus the normal mixing means that an "African-American" is a wonderfullly interesting cross between two of humanities' branches.
To make matters worse, in the US, the politicians have made up "racial" categories that have no genetic meaning ... as arbitrary as the examples you use. Hispanic is the funniest one .. as if grwoing up in a Latin speaking country conveyed a LeMarkian change in ones herdity. On the other hand, such genetically distinctive groups as the Ainu, the Tamil, and I suppose the Lembda are not recognized.
Third
Could we, should we get rid of the concepts?
I do not think so. There were major historic human choke points that correpond to the major "racial" categories ... Koisan, Bantu. Semite, Asian, Sami, Amerind subgroups, Euro ... these are all real and have genetic meaning and lingusitic meaning that means culture too has a racial identity.
Look at it this way, if we were dogs in a postMan world, we would be horrible if we did not recognize the doggness of chihuahuas as well as huskies. If the Dalmatians wantedd to keep their breed "pure" there is no harm in that. But if we, the dog scientists ignored the diversity of canines, we would be doing our species a disservice.
So, I do not think you and I disagree on facts or on the need to oppose racism. However, s a scientist, I fear the left's political correctness as much as I do that of the Bushists. I do not want to do away with the concept of identity just because the Bushies believe a zygote has a personality.
Now, doing away with "soul" .. that would be good.
- Show quoted text -
On 12/23/06, Richard Harrison wrote:
Sure, what the hey!
Sickle cell is actually significantly more prevalent in India than in
Africa. It is a mutation that seems to arise whenever malaria is an issue.
The main problem with "races" is that, well, we pretty much just made
them up as we went along. We are pretending that there are these
obvious dividing lines through humanity that just don't exist.
If you have ANY group of people, just any random group mind you. One
side of a random street instead of the other for example, there will be
average differences between the two groups. One will be taller, or
shorter, or heavier, or darker. One will have more smokers, or more
people with a criminal record or more decent athletes. One will have
more people that have had cancer or relatives with sickle cell or
familial dysautonomia or....
This applies to ANY GROUP of any size at all that you can select. So,
does that make one side of the street a different race than the other?
And, if the average difference was that they were taller, does that mean
that the shorter people on that side aren't really a member of the "left
side of the street race"?
But, you can use which side of the street you came from for medical
diagnostic purposes so it must be valid. After all, thanks to the
redhead family there, that side of the street goes under when given
anesthesia measureably more quickly. And, they have two people with
emphysema while the other side has none. So, we should always ask which
side of the street someone comes from. If the left, don't bother
checking for emphysema. And pass a law that you must ask which side of
the street you live on before you knock them out!
That is all races are really. Groups that were arbitrarily selected.
They were defined by a mythical "average" member of that group and then
we pretended that there was some magical but obvious dividing line
between these groups. And some pretty stupid laws have been passed to
prolong this myth. Look at the "one drop of negroid blood" laws
throughout much of this country. Or how they determine if you qualify
for the federal student aid given to "Native Americans" (one of your
parents before about 1970 had to say he or she was decended from a
native, no proof had to be offered, then you were officially a "native
american" and eligible for funds).
We are all different. If you clump us into groups, ANY groups, then
each of the groups will average differently in some measurements than
the other groups.
But, to use this fact to try to justify the groupings is just ignorant.
No matter how many races your personal mythology leads you to believe
in, and the numbers range from 3 to about 30 depending on where in the
world you are and your "classical education", not a single one of them
are any more justifiable from any scientific standpoint than my "other
side of the street" example.
You mentioned your pride in your ancestry. Stephen, I admire you, you
are an intelligent person and can hold a reasonable discussion on a
touchy subject which is a rare and wonderful thing. I hope I don't
insult you here but, well, here goes.
I have long felt that pride in one's ancestry or race is the pennadir (a
cord I coined, pen = the one before and you know what nadir means) thing
that a person can be proud of. You might be honored and even humbled,
that would be reasonable and I feel it about my ancestry (there are also
members in my gene pool that I'm glad aren't public knowledge :) ), but
proud? Pride is something that should be reserved for your
accomplishments, NOT for things that you had no control over.
I have my ancestry traced back to the early 1700's. Of that 10 or so
generations (about 1024 people), I am pretty sure about 8% of them which
is MUCH higher than average. What percentage for you? I think you
mentioned a time equivalent to about 14 generations. That would be a
few over 16,000 people. How many of them do you have the names for?
Within the approx 10% "psst, he wasn't really the father" compensation
that is?
That wasn't trying to be insulting actually. It was just pointing out
that, well, we are all mongrels. If race ever did exist, it has long
since been whiped out. There have been no significant "isolated"
peoples for about 600 years now. The definition of isolation is that
NONE of them interbreed with others. For as soon as any do, then that
group just become a small blip on the spectrum that has a very shallow
slope (where a cliff used to be) merging them with the rest of
humanity. It only takes 3-4 generations and that time has WAY passed
for all (racial) groups.
Richard (AKA DIPics)
Stephen Schwartz wrote:
> If you want we can continue the thread here or on my blog.
>
> --
> Stephen M. Schwartz
> Pathology
--
Stephen M. Schwartz
Pathology
Reply Forward
Richard Harrison
Stephen, Yours are in Blue, mine in Black, old stuff in red. Sure you can. Ok...
11:08 am (6 hours ago)
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Stephen Schwartz
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5:16 pm (14 minutes ago)
RH .. sorry bit whatever SW you are using. my gmail is not showing the colors. I will use ## SMS and ##RH
## SMS >
> No, you can not use any arbitrary criterion and do the same thing as
> "race." There have been real isolation events in human history just
> as with Darwin's Finches.
##RH
Sure you can. Ok, I'll give you an example. I'm going to draw a circle
around Central Texas. This circle will extend 150 miles out with Austin
as it's center. I'm going to define as a race everyone that had at
least two ancestors in this circle in 1880.
Now, let's examine this new "race" genetically. The average person in
it has is closer genetically to the current mayor of Munich Germany than
they are with the current mayor of Birmingham England (assuming that the
former is of mostly German heritage and the latter mostly English, not a
valid assumption but we're just playing here). There are obvious
differences in the average from the Germans though. They average out
significantly darker than either of the above. So, they are obviously a
race, right?
If not, why not? If so, why?
## SMS responds ...
Sure.. if that is how you want to define it, but that is not what anthropologists or geneticists mean because the branching is too recent. The branching called "race" is not at all precise, but it older than the settlement of Texas.
Obviously, there are those who use the word race for different things .. the Japanese claim to be a different race than the Koreans, but their common branch is so recent that I do not know anyone who thinks this is reasonable.
Returning to the human genome project, if all we did was use your Texans in out sample, we would leave out a great deal of the complexity of our species.
## SMS
> As a semite I am closer to an Arab genetically than to an Irishman.
> We are both close than either of us would be to an Amerind, the
> Amerind from Tierra del Fuego is closer to an Incan than she is to a
> Manchu, etc.
##RH
There is no denying that, but then obviously just from your description,
you are describing an obvious spectrum, NOT a collection of seperate
groups. Hence, not races at all.
SMS answers
Again., I think you are trying too hard to be precise. No geneticist thin ks that race is a precise term. It is less precise, for example, than species and that is less than Newtonian! If you want o refer to major branchings in oir origins, that is OK too. The bottom line is neither that Australian indigenes and Samsk of Finland are different in any absolute way, but the last common ancestor was about 40-60k years ago. Even this does nto have to be absolute. There have been some suprising evidences of ol' Ghenghis Khan's genes migrating far from the amazing circle of women he impregnated. But, if there were to be evidence in an Australian of pre-European or Asian discovery, I would guess we would have to consider that some very talented explorer got a long way form Eurasia early on. The aboriginal and the Samsk would still be "races" or "branches."
##SMS
> Choke points occur when small numbers of humans are isolated .. the
> ancestors of most Europeans were a small group of folks living in the
> Urals about 15k yrs ago. About the same time a choke point occured in
> Nigeria .. qand their ancestors today comprise southern Africa .. the
> "Blacks."
##RH
The only legitimate way you could have worded it would have been to add
the words "a significant amount of the" in front of the phrase
"ancestors of most Europeans". The people in the Urals, while a small
group, were not seperated from the rest of humanity to a degree to count
them as a "sub-species". And, to the extent that they were seperated,
this seperation dissapeared thousands of years ago.
SMS ..
I used the word "most" for exactly the reason you suggested. Nor have I ever used the word "sub-species." Humans are all pretty closely related. If there is anything like speciation it is hard to see. Maybe pygmies and Massai would be mutually incapable of producing viable offspring.
##SMS
>
> These distinctions are real enough that when we set up panels of DNA
> to collect genetics markers (SNPs) we try to ise a mix of "races." to
> get the greatest diversity. If we SNPs the genome with just Euros we
> would NOT get an adequate sample.
##RH
You do? Exactly what "races" do you use? The three classic races? 4?
6? 10? 30? what? Aah, there is the problem. How do you justify calling
one arbitrary group a "race" and not another? Unless you can answer
this, then your argument is lost.
##SMS replies
The "You" here is not "me" it is the world community of human genetics. The sample tries to include people whose origins are as diverse as possible .. I am nto sure of the number of geographic/erthinc groups but at a minimum I suspect it inblcudes, Bantu (major African population), Han, Euro, Indian subcontinent, American indigen, .. I am not sure what else.
See, what you are actually doing in my opinion, is you are trying to
sample from varied enough parts of the spectrum that we call humanity to
get the greatest diversity. After all, trying to do it by "race"
automatically limits you, doesn't it?
##SMS ...
You are the one harping on the term race. It has to be called something and that is the term most or all geneticists use while understanding exactly as you do that it is an imprecise term.
#SMS
> Second,
>
> The term is, of course, often misused. Here in the US I have argued
> against the way we classify people for medical studies as Black or
> White. it is not that I do not think there is value in this, it is
> that I know that the &(*%^% slave owners intentionally bred Africans
> vs. Amerinds. That plus the normal mixing means that an
> "African-American" is a wonderfullly interesting cross between two of
> humanities' branches.
##RH
Branches that were mixed long before the American slave trade. Look at
the Lembda. It's not as if they were the only lighter skinned peoples
to migrate south... As soon as a sub-species ends it's isolation, it
takes about 3-4 generations to blur the edges enough that it is no
longer considered a sub-species. Why should race be any different?
IMHO it shouldn't.
##SMS
I am not sure when the Lembda migration occured by it is proabably not all that long ago .. it can not be more than a2k yrs.
Again, given that species itslef is hard to define and that none consider humans to have subspecies, I do not see what point you are trying to make.
> To make matters worse, in the US, the politicians have made up
> "racial" categories that have no genetic meaning ... as arbitrary as
> the examples you use. Hispanic is the funniest one .. as if grwoing
> up in a Latin speaking country conveyed a LeMarkian change in ones
> herdity. On the other hand, such genetically distinctive groups as
> the Ainu, the Tamil, and I suppose the Lembda are not recognized.
##RH
So, what defines a race? If you cannot define it, then you cannot
pretend it is scientific.
So, define one for me. Tell me a characteristic or set of
charasteristics that are shared by ALL members of any race but not by
any person outside of that race.
##SMS
YOU are creating a defnition not I. I would simply use the term "race" in a general way to refer to subgroups of a species that have collected, as a population, sets of markers resulting from their partial isolation form other members of their species over a long time.
There are many scientific terms that lack the sort of precise definition you want .. including evolution itself.
#SMS
Or, from another perspective. To be an American Indian, exactly what
percentage of your ancestors had to be pure Amerind? And, please
justify your answer...
##SMS
Well, first of all I am not of any of the American indigenous peoples so I can to speak for them. I know, however, that some fo the peoples, like my own people, accept others who wish to become of their kind.
On the other hand, if you mean what percent one has to be to claim 100% origin from American indigenes ... that is pretty easy. It ia 100%. We can measure that by reading a person's code.
Not really diffcult.
##RH
If you cannot define it, how can you call it science?
##SMS again, there are many terms in scoence that can nto be defined precisely. Are you aware that the "speed" of light is an average?
SMS
> Third
>
> Could we, should we get rid of the concepts?
>
> I do not think so. There were major historic human choke points that
> correpond to the major "racial" categories ... Koisan, Bantu. Semite,
> Asian, Sami, Amerind subgroups, Euro ... these are all real and have
> genetic meaning and lingusitic meaning that means culture too has a
> racial identity.
>
> Look at it this way, if we were dogs in a postMan world, we would be
> horrible if we did not recognize the doggness of chihuahuas as well as
> huskies. If the Dalmatians wantedd to keep their breed "pure" there
> is no harm in that. But if we, the dog scientists ignored the
> diversity of canines, we would be doing our species a disservice.
##RH
Hmm, the term inbreeding comes directly to mind about the "no harm in
that" thing. You want the healthiest dog? Get a mutt.
##SMS
Not necessarily. If you want the fasted rce horse, you would breed for that. Hybrid vigor is not simply magical. It involves having two distinct sets of chromosomes, enough mix to slect against recessives, etc.
##RH
But, breeds are a significantly different thing than the myth we call
"races" today. To put your example into reality, imagine these dog
breeds 300 years AFTER we humans have left. I bet you would not be able
to find a single "purebred" dog anywhere. This is the actual state of
humanity now.
##SMS ...
Not necessarily true. The dingo evolved in Australia as a result of isolation of the dogs brought there by man. Chihuahua and St. Bernards may now be speciated. But, again, the issue is NOT speciation. No one thinks humans are speciated.
##RH
And, dividing the humans into "races" is IGNORING, not celebrating their
diversity. It is an ignorant attempt to limit the range of this
wonderful diversity by trying to categorize small divisions of it and
then trying to place everything into those small, artificial divisions.
There ARE small humps and clumps in the genome. They tend to have VERY
smooth, gradual edges to them that "seperate" them from the rest of the
genome. This edge is not a cliff, it is barely even a slope. So, where
on that slope does that "race" end? And which of these humps are
"races" and which aren't?
##SMS
Sorry, I can not see how recognizing diversity is a bad thing. Pretending it does not exist is as bad as pretending it is something it is not. Americans who equate all Asians with one "people" are as racist as Americans who think white skin defines race.
> So, I do not think you and I disagree on facts or on the need to
> oppose racism. However, s a scientist, I fear the left's political
> correctness as much as I do that of the Bushists. I do not want to do
> away with the concept of identity just because the Bushies believe a
> zygote has a personality.
>
> Now, doing away with "soul" .. that would be good.
##RH
I don't think that I have ever been accused of being politically
correct. After all, I am actually a member of both the ACLU AND the
NRA. :)
##SMS
I am not a member of either because BOTH practice politcal correctness albeit of different kinds.
##RH
Identity? What identity? Race is nothing but an attempt to REMOVE
personal identity by associating people with a mythical average of that
"race". It is a quasi-scientific attempt to pigeonhole people by
assuming (pretending actually) that the averages of one of these
mythical races actually apply to them as individuals.
##SMS why do you say this? Part of MY identity is my Jewish ancestry. I ahev a friend who is Karite and has proven ancestry of over 2000 years. I see nothing wrong with peole taking pride in their genetics.
Actually, my experience is usually that folks who oppose such rpide want their own great amalgam.. often euro-Christian, as the norm. I am sure you are not that way, but why would we want one world without ethnic or racial identities???
##RH
We are ALL different. There is no way to deny this. The biggest
genetic leap between people is that of parent to offspring. That is 50% on average. Each step further away is smaller. So we use a division
that is removed from us by 50 or more generations, something where the
difference between our "race" and another "race is so small it is pretty
much totally nonexistant and pretend that this non-division division
helps define us? Right.
##SMS .. I am not sure what you are trying to say here. Yes, you received about 50% of your genome from each parent. Depending on their origins, a variable part of the contribution from each aprent will be unique. If both parents are of the same family, as with the typical Bedouin, there may be a lot of homozygosity (same genes on both chromosomes). If Dad is an IBO and Mom and Ainu, there will be much less homozygosity.
- Show quoted text -
On 12/24/06, Richard Harrison wrote:
Stephen,
Yours are in Blue, mine in Black, old stuff in red.
First,
>
> No, you can not use any arbitrary criterion and do the same thing as
> "race." There have been real isolation events in human history just
> as with Darwin's Finches.
Sure you can. Ok, I'll give you an example. I'm going to draw a circle
around Central Texas. This circle will extend 150 miles out with Austin
as it's center. I'm going to define as a race everyone that had at
least two ancestors in this circle in 1880.
Now, let's examine this new "race" genetically. The average person in
it has is closer genetically to the current mayor of Munich Germany than
they are with the current mayor of Birmingham England (assuming that the
former is of mostly German heritage and the latter mostly English, not a
valid assumption but we're just playing here). There are obvious
differences in the average from the Germans though. They average out
significantly darker than either of the above. So, they are obviously a
race, right?
If not, why not? If so, why?
> As a semite I am closer to an Arab genetically than to an Irishman.
> We are both close than either of us would be to an Amerind, the
> Amerind from Tierra del Fuego is closer to an Incan than she is to a
> Manchu, etc.
There is no denying that, but then obviously just from your description,
you are describing an obvious spectrum, NOT a collection of seperate
groups. Hence, not races at all.
> Choke points occur when small numbers of humans are isolated .. the
> ancestors of most Europeans were a small group of folks living in the
> Urals about 15k yrs ago. About the same time a choke point occured in
> Nigeria .. qand their ancestors today comprise southern Africa .. the
> "Blacks."
The only legitimate way you could have worded it would have been to add
the words "a significant amount of the" in front of the phrase
"ancestors of most Europeans". The people in the Urals, while a small
group, were not seperated from the rest of humanity to a degree to count
them as a "sub-species". And, to the extent that they were seperated,
this seperation dissapeared thousands of years ago.
>
> These distinctions are real enough that when we set up panels of DNA
> to collect genetics markers (SNPs) we try to ise a mix of "races." to
> get the greatest diversity. If we SNPs the genome with just Euros we
> would NOT get an adequate sample.
You do? Exactly what "races" do you use? The three classic races? 4?
6? 10? 30? what? Aah, there is the problem. How do you justify calling
one arbitrary group a "race" and not another? Unless you can answer
this, then your argument is lost.
See, what you are actually doing in my opinion, is you are trying to
sample from varied enough parts of the spectrum that we call humanity to
get the greatest diversity. After all, trying to do it by "race"
automatically limits you, doesn't it?
>
> Second,
>
> The term is, of course, often misused. Here in the US I have argued
> against the way we classify people for medical studies as Black or
> White. it is not that I do not think there is value in this, it is
> that I know that the &(*%^% slave owners intentionally bred Africans
> vs. Amerinds. That plus the normal mixing means that an
> "African-American" is a wonderfullly interesting cross between two of
> humanities' branches.
Branches that were mixed long before the American slave trade. Look at
the Lembda. It's not as if they were the only lighter skinned peoples
to migrate south... As soon as a sub-species ends it's isolation, it
takes about 3-4 generations to blur the edges enough that it is no
longer considered a sub-species. Why should race be any different?
IMHO it shouldn't.
> To make matters worse, in the US, the politicians have made up
> "racial" categories that have no genetic meaning ... as arbitrary as
> the examples you use. Hispanic is the funniest one .. as if grwoing
> up in a Latin speaking country conveyed a LeMarkian change in ones
> herdity. On the other hand, such genetically distinctive groups as
> the Ainu, the Tamil, and I suppose the Lembda are not recognized.
So, what defines a race? If you cannot define it, then you cannot
pretend it is scientific.
So, define one for me. Tell me a characteristic or set of
charasteristics that are shared by ALL members of any race but not by
any person outside of that race.
Or, from another perspective. To be an American Indian, exactly what
percentage of your ancestors had to be pure Amerind? And, please
justify your answer...
If you cannot define it, how can you call it science?
> Third
>
> Could we, should we get rid of the concepts?
>
> I do not think so. There were major historic human choke points that
> correpond to the major "racial" categories ... Koisan, Bantu. Semite,
> Asian, Sami, Amerind subgroups, Euro ... these are all real and have
> genetic meaning and lingusitic meaning that means culture too has a
> racial identity.
>
> Look at it this way, if we were dogs in a postMan world, we would be
> horrible if we did not recognize the doggness of chihuahuas as well as
> huskies. If the Dalmatians wantedd to keep their breed "pure" there
> is no harm in that. But if we, the dog scientists ignored the
> diversity of canines, we would be doing our species a disservice.
Hmm, the term inbreeding comes directly to mind about the "no harm in
that" thing. You want the healthiest dog? Get a mutt.
But, breeds are a significantly different thing than the myth we call
"races" today. To put your example into reality, imagine these dog
breeds 300 years AFTER we humans have left. I bet you would not be able
to find a single "purebred" dog anywhere. This is the actual state of
humanity now.
And, dividing the humans into "races" is IGNORING, not celebrating their
diversity. It is an ignorant attempt to limit the range of this
wonderful diversity by trying to categorize small divisions of it and
then trying to place everything into those small, artificial divisions.
There ARE small humps and clumps in the genome. They tend to have VERY
smooth, gradual edges to them that "seperate" them from the rest of the
genome. This edge is not a cliff, it is barely even a slope. So, where
on that slope does that "race" end? And which of these humps are
"races" and which aren't?
> So, I do not think you and I disagree on facts or on the need to
> oppose racism. However, s a scientist, I fear the left's political
> correctness as much as I do that of the Bushists. I do not want to do
> away with the concept of identity just because the Bushies believe a
> zygote has a personality.
>
> Now, doing away with "soul" .. that would be good.
I don't think that I have ever been accused of being politically
correct. After all, I am actually a member of both the ACLU AND the
NRA. :)
Identity? What identity? Race is nothing but an attempt to REMOVE
personal identity by associating people with a mythical average of that
"race". It is a quasi-scientific attempt to pigeonhole people by
assuming (pretending actually) that the averages of one of these
mythical races actually apply to them as individuals.
We are ALL different. There is no way to deny this. The biggest
genetic leap between people is that of parent to offspring. That is 50%
on average. Each step further away is smaller. So we use a division
that is removed from us by 50 or more generations, something where the
difference between our "race" and another "race is so small it is pretty
much totally nonexistant and pretend that this non-division division
helps define us? Right.
> On 12/23/06, *Richard Harrison* <>> wrote:
>
> Sure, what the hey!
>
> Sickle cell is actually significantly more prevalent in India than in
> Africa. It is a mutation that seems to arise whenever malaria is
> an issue.
>
> The main problem with "races" is that, well, we pretty much just made
> them up as we went along. We are pretending that there are these
> obvious dividing lines through humanity that just don't exist.
>
> If you have ANY group of people, just any random group mind you. One
> side of a random street instead of the other for example, there
> will be
> average differences between the two groups. One will be taller, or
> shorter, or heavier, or darker. One will have more smokers, or more
> people with a criminal record or more decent athletes. One will have
> more people that have had cancer or relatives with sickle cell or
> familial dysautonomia or....
>
> This applies to ANY GROUP of any size at all that you can select. So,
> does that make one side of the street a different race than the other?
> And, if the average difference was that they were taller, does
> that mean
> that the shorter people on that side aren't really a member of the
> "left
> side of the street race"?
>
> But, you can use which side of the street you came from for medical
> diagnostic purposes so it must be valid. After all, thanks to the
> redhead family there, that side of the street goes under when given
> anesthesia measureably more quickly. And, they have two people with
> emphysema while the other side has none. So, we should always ask
> which
> side of the street someone comes from. If the left, don't bother
> checking for emphysema. And pass a law that you must ask which
> side of
> the street you live on before you knock them out!
>
> That is all races are really. Groups that were arbitrarily selected.
> They were defined by a mythical "average" member of that group and
> then
> we pretended that there was some magical but obvious dividing line
> between these groups. And some pretty stupid laws have been
> passed to
> prolong this myth. Look at the "one drop of negroid blood" laws
> throughout much of this country. Or how they determine if you qualify
> for the federal student aid given to "Native Americans" (one of your
> parents before about 1970 had to say he or she was decended from a
> native, no proof had to be offered, then you were officially a "native
> american" and eligible for funds).
>
> We are all different. If you clump us into groups, ANY groups, then
> each of the groups will average differently in some measurements than
> the other groups.
>
> But, to use this fact to try to justify the groupings is just
> ignorant.
> No matter how many races your personal mythology leads you to believe
> in, and the numbers range from 3 to about 30 depending on where in the
> world you are and your "classical education", not a single one of them
> are any more justifiable from any scientific standpoint than my
> "other
> side of the street" example.
>
> You mentioned your pride in your ancestry. Stephen, I admire
> you, you
> are an intelligent person and can hold a reasonable discussion on a
> touchy subject which is a rare and wonderful thing. I hope I don't
> insult you here but, well, here goes.
>
> I have long felt that pride in one's ancestry or race is the
> pennadir (a
> cord I coined, pen = the one before and you know what nadir means)
> thing
> that a person can be proud of. You might be honored and even
> humbled,
> that would be reasonable and I feel it about my ancestry (there
> are also
> members in my gene pool that I'm glad aren't public knowledge :)
> ), but
> proud? Pride is something that should be reserved for your
> accomplishments, NOT for things that you had no control over.
>
> I have my ancestry traced back to the early 1700's. Of that 10 or so
> generations (about 1024 people), I am pretty sure about 8% of them
> which
> is MUCH higher than average. What percentage for you? I think you
> mentioned a time equivalent to about 14 generations. That would be a
> few over 16,000 people. How many of them do you have the names for?
> Within the approx 10% "psst, he wasn't really the father"
> compensation
> that is?
>
> That wasn't trying to be insulting actually. It was just pointing out
> that, well, we are all mongrels. If race ever did exist, it has long
> since been whiped out. There have been no significant "isolated"
> peoples for about 600 years now. The definition of isolation is that
> NONE of them interbreed with others. For as soon as any do, then that
> group just become a small blip on the spectrum that has a very
> shallow
> slope (where a cliff used to be) merging them with the rest of
> humanity. It only takes 3-4 generations and that time has WAY passed
> for all (racial) groups.
>
> Richard (AKA DIPics)
>
> Stephen Schwartz wrote:
>
> > If you want we can continue the thread here or on my blog.
> >
> > --
> > Stephen M. Schwartz
> > Pathology
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Stephen M. Schwartz
> Pathology
As one example, I was very fortunate to take some of my psychology education form Richard Hernstein. Unfortunately for him, Professor Hernstein had the gall t make an effort to look at the role fo race in intelligence. A hard subject, difficult enough without the assorted strains of bigotry but no less reasonable than attempting to measure anything else. Anyhow, Prof. Hernstein had the grace to die young, but not before he was pilloried and verbally tar ans feathered by none other than Steven J. Gould. Now, I have a disclosure to make. I am a card carrying memebr of the Society of Steves and contribute money in Gould's memory to the fight against creationist obscurism. But Gould was as blind as a Fallwell on this issue. His book, the mis-measure of intelligence, is full of major statistical errors and ad hominem attacks.
In my own world as a scioentist, this topic is bizar. Ont he one hand the NIH takes "race" seriously and demands "race" data in our studies. On the other hand, when I have suggested obtaining valid genetic data on race, I get yelled at. Sad.
Here is the post:
___________________________________________________________________________________
First,
No, you can not use any arbitrary criterion and do the same thing as "race." There have been real isolation events in human history just as with Darwin's Finches. As a semite I am closer to an Arab genetically than to an Irishman. We are both close than either of us would be to an Amerind, the Amerind from Tierra del Fuego is closer to an Incan than she is to a Manchu, etc.
Choke points occur when small numbers of humans are isolated .. the ancestors of most Europeans were a small group of folks living in the Urals about 15k yrs ago. About the same time a choke point occured in Nigeria .. qand their ancestors today comprise southern Africa .. the "Blacks."
These distinctions are real enough that when we set up panels of DNA to collect genetics markers (SNPs) we try to ise a mix of "races." to get the greatest diversity. If we SNPs the genome with just Euros we would NOT get an adequate sample.
Second,
The term is, of course, often misused. Here in the US I have argued against the way we classify people for medical studies as Black or White. it is not that I do not think there is value in this, it is that I know that the &(*%^% slave owners intentionally bred Africans vs. Amerinds. That plus the normal mixing means that an "African-American" is a wonderfullly interesting cross between two of humanities' branches.
To make matters worse, in the US, the politicians have made up "racial" categories that have no genetic meaning ... as arbitrary as the examples you use. Hispanic is the funniest one .. as if grwoing up in a Latin speaking country conveyed a LeMarkian change in ones herdity. On the other hand, such genetically distinctive groups as the Ainu, the Tamil, and I suppose the Lembda are not recognized.
Third
Could we, should we get rid of the concepts?
I do not think so. There were major historic human choke points that correpond to the major "racial" categories ... Koisan, Bantu. Semite, Asian, Sami, Amerind subgroups, Euro ... these are all real and have genetic meaning and lingusitic meaning that means culture too has a racial identity.
Look at it this way, if we were dogs in a postMan world, we would be horrible if we did not recognize the doggness of chihuahuas as well as huskies. If the Dalmatians wantedd to keep their breed "pure" there is no harm in that. But if we, the dog scientists ignored the diversity of canines, we would be doing our species a disservice.
So, I do not think you and I disagree on facts or on the need to oppose racism. However, s a scientist, I fear the left's political correctness as much as I do that of the Bushists. I do not want to do away with the concept of identity just because the Bushies believe a zygote has a personality.
Now, doing away with "soul" .. that would be good.
- Show quoted text -
On 12/23/06, Richard Harrison
Sure, what the hey!
Sickle cell is actually significantly more prevalent in India than in
Africa. It is a mutation that seems to arise whenever malaria is an issue.
The main problem with "races" is that, well, we pretty much just made
them up as we went along. We are pretending that there are these
obvious dividing lines through humanity that just don't exist.
If you have ANY group of people, just any random group mind you. One
side of a random street instead of the other for example, there will be
average differences between the two groups. One will be taller, or
shorter, or heavier, or darker. One will have more smokers, or more
people with a criminal record or more decent athletes. One will have
more people that have had cancer or relatives with sickle cell or
familial dysautonomia or....
This applies to ANY GROUP of any size at all that you can select. So,
does that make one side of the street a different race than the other?
And, if the average difference was that they were taller, does that mean
that the shorter people on that side aren't really a member of the "left
side of the street race"?
But, you can use which side of the street you came from for medical
diagnostic purposes so it must be valid. After all, thanks to the
redhead family there, that side of the street goes under when given
anesthesia measureably more quickly. And, they have two people with
emphysema while the other side has none. So, we should always ask which
side of the street someone comes from. If the left, don't bother
checking for emphysema. And pass a law that you must ask which side of
the street you live on before you knock them out!
That is all races are really. Groups that were arbitrarily selected.
They were defined by a mythical "average" member of that group and then
we pretended that there was some magical but obvious dividing line
between these groups. And some pretty stupid laws have been passed to
prolong this myth. Look at the "one drop of negroid blood" laws
throughout much of this country. Or how they determine if you qualify
for the federal student aid given to "Native Americans" (one of your
parents before about 1970 had to say he or she was decended from a
native, no proof had to be offered, then you were officially a "native
american" and eligible for funds).
We are all different. If you clump us into groups, ANY groups, then
each of the groups will average differently in some measurements than
the other groups.
But, to use this fact to try to justify the groupings is just ignorant.
No matter how many races your personal mythology leads you to believe
in, and the numbers range from 3 to about 30 depending on where in the
world you are and your "classical education", not a single one of them
are any more justifiable from any scientific standpoint than my "other
side of the street" example.
You mentioned your pride in your ancestry. Stephen, I admire you, you
are an intelligent person and can hold a reasonable discussion on a
touchy subject which is a rare and wonderful thing. I hope I don't
insult you here but, well, here goes.
I have long felt that pride in one's ancestry or race is the pennadir (a
cord I coined, pen = the one before and you know what nadir means) thing
that a person can be proud of. You might be honored and even humbled,
that would be reasonable and I feel it about my ancestry (there are also
members in my gene pool that I'm glad aren't public knowledge :) ), but
proud? Pride is something that should be reserved for your
accomplishments, NOT for things that you had no control over.
I have my ancestry traced back to the early 1700's. Of that 10 or so
generations (about 1024 people), I am pretty sure about 8% of them which
is MUCH higher than average. What percentage for you? I think you
mentioned a time equivalent to about 14 generations. That would be a
few over 16,000 people. How many of them do you have the names for?
Within the approx 10% "psst, he wasn't really the father" compensation
that is?
That wasn't trying to be insulting actually. It was just pointing out
that, well, we are all mongrels. If race ever did exist, it has long
since been whiped out. There have been no significant "isolated"
peoples for about 600 years now. The definition of isolation is that
NONE of them interbreed with others. For as soon as any do, then that
group just become a small blip on the spectrum that has a very shallow
slope (where a cliff used to be) merging them with the rest of
humanity. It only takes 3-4 generations and that time has WAY passed
for all (racial) groups.
Richard (AKA DIPics)
Stephen Schwartz wrote:
> If you want we can continue the thread here or on my blog.
>
> --
> Stephen M. Schwartz
> Pathology
--
Stephen M. Schwartz
Pathology
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Richard Harrison
Stephen, Yours are in Blue, mine in Black, old stuff in red. Sure you can. Ok...
11:08 am (6 hours ago)
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Stephen Schwartz
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5:16 pm (14 minutes ago)
RH .. sorry bit whatever SW you are using. my gmail is not showing the colors. I will use ## SMS and ##RH
## SMS >
> No, you can not use any arbitrary criterion and do the same thing as
> "race." There have been real isolation events in human history just
> as with Darwin's Finches.
##RH
Sure you can. Ok, I'll give you an example. I'm going to draw a circle
around Central Texas. This circle will extend 150 miles out with Austin
as it's center. I'm going to define as a race everyone that had at
least two ancestors in this circle in 1880.
Now, let's examine this new "race" genetically. The average person in
it has is closer genetically to the current mayor of Munich Germany than
they are with the current mayor of Birmingham England (assuming that the
former is of mostly German heritage and the latter mostly English, not a
valid assumption but we're just playing here). There are obvious
differences in the average from the Germans though. They average out
significantly darker than either of the above. So, they are obviously a
race, right?
If not, why not? If so, why?
## SMS responds ...
Sure.. if that is how you want to define it, but that is not what anthropologists or geneticists mean because the branching is too recent. The branching called "race" is not at all precise, but it older than the settlement of Texas.
Obviously, there are those who use the word race for different things .. the Japanese claim to be a different race than the Koreans, but their common branch is so recent that I do not know anyone who thinks this is reasonable.
Returning to the human genome project, if all we did was use your Texans in out sample, we would leave out a great deal of the complexity of our species.
## SMS
> As a semite I am closer to an Arab genetically than to an Irishman.
> We are both close than either of us would be to an Amerind, the
> Amerind from Tierra del Fuego is closer to an Incan than she is to a
> Manchu, etc.
##RH
There is no denying that, but then obviously just from your description,
you are describing an obvious spectrum, NOT a collection of seperate
groups. Hence, not races at all.
SMS answers
Again., I think you are trying too hard to be precise. No geneticist thin ks that race is a precise term. It is less precise, for example, than species and that is less than Newtonian! If you want o refer to major branchings in oir origins, that is OK too. The bottom line is neither that Australian indigenes and Samsk of Finland are different in any absolute way, but the last common ancestor was about 40-60k years ago. Even this does nto have to be absolute. There have been some suprising evidences of ol' Ghenghis Khan's genes migrating far from the amazing circle of women he impregnated. But, if there were to be evidence in an Australian of pre-European or Asian discovery, I would guess we would have to consider that some very talented explorer got a long way form Eurasia early on. The aboriginal and the Samsk would still be "races" or "branches."
##SMS
> Choke points occur when small numbers of humans are isolated .. the
> ancestors of most Europeans were a small group of folks living in the
> Urals about 15k yrs ago. About the same time a choke point occured in
> Nigeria .. qand their ancestors today comprise southern Africa .. the
> "Blacks."
##RH
The only legitimate way you could have worded it would have been to add
the words "a significant amount of the" in front of the phrase
"ancestors of most Europeans". The people in the Urals, while a small
group, were not seperated from the rest of humanity to a degree to count
them as a "sub-species". And, to the extent that they were seperated,
this seperation dissapeared thousands of years ago.
SMS ..
I used the word "most" for exactly the reason you suggested. Nor have I ever used the word "sub-species." Humans are all pretty closely related. If there is anything like speciation it is hard to see. Maybe pygmies and Massai would be mutually incapable of producing viable offspring.
##SMS
>
> These distinctions are real enough that when we set up panels of DNA
> to collect genetics markers (SNPs) we try to ise a mix of "races." to
> get the greatest diversity. If we SNPs the genome with just Euros we
> would NOT get an adequate sample.
##RH
You do? Exactly what "races" do you use? The three classic races? 4?
6? 10? 30? what? Aah, there is the problem. How do you justify calling
one arbitrary group a "race" and not another? Unless you can answer
this, then your argument is lost.
##SMS replies
The "You" here is not "me" it is the world community of human genetics. The sample tries to include people whose origins are as diverse as possible .. I am nto sure of the number of geographic/erthinc groups but at a minimum I suspect it inblcudes, Bantu (major African population), Han, Euro, Indian subcontinent, American indigen, .. I am not sure what else.
See, what you are actually doing in my opinion, is you are trying to
sample from varied enough parts of the spectrum that we call humanity to
get the greatest diversity. After all, trying to do it by "race"
automatically limits you, doesn't it?
##SMS ...
You are the one harping on the term race. It has to be called something and that is the term most or all geneticists use while understanding exactly as you do that it is an imprecise term.
#SMS
> Second,
>
> The term is, of course, often misused. Here in the US I have argued
> against the way we classify people for medical studies as Black or
> White. it is not that I do not think there is value in this, it is
> that I know that the &(*%^% slave owners intentionally bred Africans
> vs. Amerinds. That plus the normal mixing means that an
> "African-American" is a wonderfullly interesting cross between two of
> humanities' branches.
##RH
Branches that were mixed long before the American slave trade. Look at
the Lembda. It's not as if they were the only lighter skinned peoples
to migrate south... As soon as a sub-species ends it's isolation, it
takes about 3-4 generations to blur the edges enough that it is no
longer considered a sub-species. Why should race be any different?
IMHO it shouldn't.
##SMS
I am not sure when the Lembda migration occured by it is proabably not all that long ago .. it can not be more than a2k yrs.
Again, given that species itslef is hard to define and that none consider humans to have subspecies, I do not see what point you are trying to make.
> To make matters worse, in the US, the politicians have made up
> "racial" categories that have no genetic meaning ... as arbitrary as
> the examples you use. Hispanic is the funniest one .. as if grwoing
> up in a Latin speaking country conveyed a LeMarkian change in ones
> herdity. On the other hand, such genetically distinctive groups as
> the Ainu, the Tamil, and I suppose the Lembda are not recognized.
##RH
So, what defines a race? If you cannot define it, then you cannot
pretend it is scientific.
So, define one for me. Tell me a characteristic or set of
charasteristics that are shared by ALL members of any race but not by
any person outside of that race.
##SMS
YOU are creating a defnition not I. I would simply use the term "race" in a general way to refer to subgroups of a species that have collected, as a population, sets of markers resulting from their partial isolation form other members of their species over a long time.
There are many scientific terms that lack the sort of precise definition you want .. including evolution itself.
#SMS
Or, from another perspective. To be an American Indian, exactly what
percentage of your ancestors had to be pure Amerind? And, please
justify your answer...
##SMS
Well, first of all I am not of any of the American indigenous peoples so I can to speak for them. I know, however, that some fo the peoples, like my own people, accept others who wish to become of their kind.
On the other hand, if you mean what percent one has to be to claim 100% origin from American indigenes ... that is pretty easy. It ia 100%. We can measure that by reading a person's code.
Not really diffcult.
##RH
If you cannot define it, how can you call it science?
##SMS again, there are many terms in scoence that can nto be defined precisely. Are you aware that the "speed" of light is an average?
SMS
> Third
>
> Could we, should we get rid of the concepts?
>
> I do not think so. There were major historic human choke points that
> correpond to the major "racial" categories ... Koisan, Bantu. Semite,
> Asian, Sami, Amerind subgroups, Euro ... these are all real and have
> genetic meaning and lingusitic meaning that means culture too has a
> racial identity.
>
> Look at it this way, if we were dogs in a postMan world, we would be
> horrible if we did not recognize the doggness of chihuahuas as well as
> huskies. If the Dalmatians wantedd to keep their breed "pure" there
> is no harm in that. But if we, the dog scientists ignored the
> diversity of canines, we would be doing our species a disservice.
##RH
Hmm, the term inbreeding comes directly to mind about the "no harm in
that" thing. You want the healthiest dog? Get a mutt.
##SMS
Not necessarily. If you want the fasted rce horse, you would breed for that. Hybrid vigor is not simply magical. It involves having two distinct sets of chromosomes, enough mix to slect against recessives, etc.
##RH
But, breeds are a significantly different thing than the myth we call
"races" today. To put your example into reality, imagine these dog
breeds 300 years AFTER we humans have left. I bet you would not be able
to find a single "purebred" dog anywhere. This is the actual state of
humanity now.
##SMS ...
Not necessarily true. The dingo evolved in Australia as a result of isolation of the dogs brought there by man. Chihuahua and St. Bernards may now be speciated. But, again, the issue is NOT speciation. No one thinks humans are speciated.
##RH
And, dividing the humans into "races" is IGNORING, not celebrating their
diversity. It is an ignorant attempt to limit the range of this
wonderful diversity by trying to categorize small divisions of it and
then trying to place everything into those small, artificial divisions.
There ARE small humps and clumps in the genome. They tend to have VERY
smooth, gradual edges to them that "seperate" them from the rest of the
genome. This edge is not a cliff, it is barely even a slope. So, where
on that slope does that "race" end? And which of these humps are
"races" and which aren't?
##SMS
Sorry, I can not see how recognizing diversity is a bad thing. Pretending it does not exist is as bad as pretending it is something it is not. Americans who equate all Asians with one "people" are as racist as Americans who think white skin defines race.
> So, I do not think you and I disagree on facts or on the need to
> oppose racism. However, s a scientist, I fear the left's political
> correctness as much as I do that of the Bushists. I do not want to do
> away with the concept of identity just because the Bushies believe a
> zygote has a personality.
>
> Now, doing away with "soul" .. that would be good.
##RH
I don't think that I have ever been accused of being politically
correct. After all, I am actually a member of both the ACLU AND the
NRA. :)
##SMS
I am not a member of either because BOTH practice politcal correctness albeit of different kinds.
##RH
Identity? What identity? Race is nothing but an attempt to REMOVE
personal identity by associating people with a mythical average of that
"race". It is a quasi-scientific attempt to pigeonhole people by
assuming (pretending actually) that the averages of one of these
mythical races actually apply to them as individuals.
##SMS why do you say this? Part of MY identity is my Jewish ancestry. I ahev a friend who is Karite and has proven ancestry of over 2000 years. I see nothing wrong with peole taking pride in their genetics.
Actually, my experience is usually that folks who oppose such rpide want their own great amalgam.. often euro-Christian, as the norm. I am sure you are not that way, but why would we want one world without ethnic or racial identities???
##RH
We are ALL different. There is no way to deny this. The biggest
genetic leap between people is that of parent to offspring. That is 50% on average. Each step further away is smaller. So we use a division
that is removed from us by 50 or more generations, something where the
difference between our "race" and another "race is so small it is pretty
much totally nonexistant and pretend that this non-division division
helps define us? Right.
##SMS .. I am not sure what you are trying to say here. Yes, you received about 50% of your genome from each parent. Depending on their origins, a variable part of the contribution from each aprent will be unique. If both parents are of the same family, as with the typical Bedouin, there may be a lot of homozygosity (same genes on both chromosomes). If Dad is an IBO and Mom and Ainu, there will be much less homozygosity.
- Show quoted text -
On 12/24/06, Richard Harrison
Stephen,
Yours are in Blue, mine in Black, old stuff in red.
First,
>
> No, you can not use any arbitrary criterion and do the same thing as
> "race." There have been real isolation events in human history just
> as with Darwin's Finches.
Sure you can. Ok, I'll give you an example. I'm going to draw a circle
around Central Texas. This circle will extend 150 miles out with Austin
as it's center. I'm going to define as a race everyone that had at
least two ancestors in this circle in 1880.
Now, let's examine this new "race" genetically. The average person in
it has is closer genetically to the current mayor of Munich Germany than
they are with the current mayor of Birmingham England (assuming that the
former is of mostly German heritage and the latter mostly English, not a
valid assumption but we're just playing here). There are obvious
differences in the average from the Germans though. They average out
significantly darker than either of the above. So, they are obviously a
race, right?
If not, why not? If so, why?
> As a semite I am closer to an Arab genetically than to an Irishman.
> We are both close than either of us would be to an Amerind, the
> Amerind from Tierra del Fuego is closer to an Incan than she is to a
> Manchu, etc.
There is no denying that, but then obviously just from your description,
you are describing an obvious spectrum, NOT a collection of seperate
groups. Hence, not races at all.
> Choke points occur when small numbers of humans are isolated .. the
> ancestors of most Europeans were a small group of folks living in the
> Urals about 15k yrs ago. About the same time a choke point occured in
> Nigeria .. qand their ancestors today comprise southern Africa .. the
> "Blacks."
The only legitimate way you could have worded it would have been to add
the words "a significant amount of the" in front of the phrase
"ancestors of most Europeans". The people in the Urals, while a small
group, were not seperated from the rest of humanity to a degree to count
them as a "sub-species". And, to the extent that they were seperated,
this seperation dissapeared thousands of years ago.
>
> These distinctions are real enough that when we set up panels of DNA
> to collect genetics markers (SNPs) we try to ise a mix of "races." to
> get the greatest diversity. If we SNPs the genome with just Euros we
> would NOT get an adequate sample.
You do? Exactly what "races" do you use? The three classic races? 4?
6? 10? 30? what? Aah, there is the problem. How do you justify calling
one arbitrary group a "race" and not another? Unless you can answer
this, then your argument is lost.
See, what you are actually doing in my opinion, is you are trying to
sample from varied enough parts of the spectrum that we call humanity to
get the greatest diversity. After all, trying to do it by "race"
automatically limits you, doesn't it?
>
> Second,
>
> The term is, of course, often misused. Here in the US I have argued
> against the way we classify people for medical studies as Black or
> White. it is not that I do not think there is value in this, it is
> that I know that the &(*%^% slave owners intentionally bred Africans
> vs. Amerinds. That plus the normal mixing means that an
> "African-American" is a wonderfullly interesting cross between two of
> humanities' branches.
Branches that were mixed long before the American slave trade. Look at
the Lembda. It's not as if they were the only lighter skinned peoples
to migrate south... As soon as a sub-species ends it's isolation, it
takes about 3-4 generations to blur the edges enough that it is no
longer considered a sub-species. Why should race be any different?
IMHO it shouldn't.
> To make matters worse, in the US, the politicians have made up
> "racial" categories that have no genetic meaning ... as arbitrary as
> the examples you use. Hispanic is the funniest one .. as if grwoing
> up in a Latin speaking country conveyed a LeMarkian change in ones
> herdity. On the other hand, such genetically distinctive groups as
> the Ainu, the Tamil, and I suppose the Lembda are not recognized.
So, what defines a race? If you cannot define it, then you cannot
pretend it is scientific.
So, define one for me. Tell me a characteristic or set of
charasteristics that are shared by ALL members of any race but not by
any person outside of that race.
Or, from another perspective. To be an American Indian, exactly what
percentage of your ancestors had to be pure Amerind? And, please
justify your answer...
If you cannot define it, how can you call it science?
> Third
>
> Could we, should we get rid of the concepts?
>
> I do not think so. There were major historic human choke points that
> correpond to the major "racial" categories ... Koisan, Bantu. Semite,
> Asian, Sami, Amerind subgroups, Euro ... these are all real and have
> genetic meaning and lingusitic meaning that means culture too has a
> racial identity.
>
> Look at it this way, if we were dogs in a postMan world, we would be
> horrible if we did not recognize the doggness of chihuahuas as well as
> huskies. If the Dalmatians wantedd to keep their breed "pure" there
> is no harm in that. But if we, the dog scientists ignored the
> diversity of canines, we would be doing our species a disservice.
Hmm, the term inbreeding comes directly to mind about the "no harm in
that" thing. You want the healthiest dog? Get a mutt.
But, breeds are a significantly different thing than the myth we call
"races" today. To put your example into reality, imagine these dog
breeds 300 years AFTER we humans have left. I bet you would not be able
to find a single "purebred" dog anywhere. This is the actual state of
humanity now.
And, dividing the humans into "races" is IGNORING, not celebrating their
diversity. It is an ignorant attempt to limit the range of this
wonderful diversity by trying to categorize small divisions of it and
then trying to place everything into those small, artificial divisions.
There ARE small humps and clumps in the genome. They tend to have VERY
smooth, gradual edges to them that "seperate" them from the rest of the
genome. This edge is not a cliff, it is barely even a slope. So, where
on that slope does that "race" end? And which of these humps are
"races" and which aren't?
> So, I do not think you and I disagree on facts or on the need to
> oppose racism. However, s a scientist, I fear the left's political
> correctness as much as I do that of the Bushists. I do not want to do
> away with the concept of identity just because the Bushies believe a
> zygote has a personality.
>
> Now, doing away with "soul" .. that would be good.
I don't think that I have ever been accused of being politically
correct. After all, I am actually a member of both the ACLU AND the
NRA. :)
Identity? What identity? Race is nothing but an attempt to REMOVE
personal identity by associating people with a mythical average of that
"race". It is a quasi-scientific attempt to pigeonhole people by
assuming (pretending actually) that the averages of one of these
mythical races actually apply to them as individuals.
We are ALL different. There is no way to deny this. The biggest
genetic leap between people is that of parent to offspring. That is 50%
on average. Each step further away is smaller. So we use a division
that is removed from us by 50 or more generations, something where the
difference between our "race" and another "race is so small it is pretty
much totally nonexistant and pretend that this non-division division
helps define us? Right.
> On 12/23/06, *Richard Harrison* <>
>
> Sure, what the hey!
>
> Sickle cell is actually significantly more prevalent in India than in
> Africa. It is a mutation that seems to arise whenever malaria is
> an issue.
>
> The main problem with "races" is that, well, we pretty much just made
> them up as we went along. We are pretending that there are these
> obvious dividing lines through humanity that just don't exist.
>
> If you have ANY group of people, just any random group mind you. One
> side of a random street instead of the other for example, there
> will be
> average differences between the two groups. One will be taller, or
> shorter, or heavier, or darker. One will have more smokers, or more
> people with a criminal record or more decent athletes. One will have
> more people that have had cancer or relatives with sickle cell or
> familial dysautonomia or....
>
> This applies to ANY GROUP of any size at all that you can select. So,
> does that make one side of the street a different race than the other?
> And, if the average difference was that they were taller, does
> that mean
> that the shorter people on that side aren't really a member of the
> "left
> side of the street race"?
>
> But, you can use which side of the street you came from for medical
> diagnostic purposes so it must be valid. After all, thanks to the
> redhead family there, that side of the street goes under when given
> anesthesia measureably more quickly. And, they have two people with
> emphysema while the other side has none. So, we should always ask
> which
> side of the street someone comes from. If the left, don't bother
> checking for emphysema. And pass a law that you must ask which
> side of
> the street you live on before you knock them out!
>
> That is all races are really. Groups that were arbitrarily selected.
> They were defined by a mythical "average" member of that group and
> then
> we pretended that there was some magical but obvious dividing line
> between these groups. And some pretty stupid laws have been
> passed to
> prolong this myth. Look at the "one drop of negroid blood" laws
> throughout much of this country. Or how they determine if you qualify
> for the federal student aid given to "Native Americans" (one of your
> parents before about 1970 had to say he or she was decended from a
> native, no proof had to be offered, then you were officially a "native
> american" and eligible for funds).
>
> We are all different. If you clump us into groups, ANY groups, then
> each of the groups will average differently in some measurements than
> the other groups.
>
> But, to use this fact to try to justify the groupings is just
> ignorant.
> No matter how many races your personal mythology leads you to believe
> in, and the numbers range from 3 to about 30 depending on where in the
> world you are and your "classical education", not a single one of them
> are any more justifiable from any scientific standpoint than my
> "other
> side of the street" example.
>
> You mentioned your pride in your ancestry. Stephen, I admire
> you, you
> are an intelligent person and can hold a reasonable discussion on a
> touchy subject which is a rare and wonderful thing. I hope I don't
> insult you here but, well, here goes.
>
> I have long felt that pride in one's ancestry or race is the
> pennadir (a
> cord I coined, pen = the one before and you know what nadir means)
> thing
> that a person can be proud of. You might be honored and even
> humbled,
> that would be reasonable and I feel it about my ancestry (there
> are also
> members in my gene pool that I'm glad aren't public knowledge :)
> ), but
> proud? Pride is something that should be reserved for your
> accomplishments, NOT for things that you had no control over.
>
> I have my ancestry traced back to the early 1700's. Of that 10 or so
> generations (about 1024 people), I am pretty sure about 8% of them
> which
> is MUCH higher than average. What percentage for you? I think you
> mentioned a time equivalent to about 14 generations. That would be a
> few over 16,000 people. How many of them do you have the names for?
> Within the approx 10% "psst, he wasn't really the father"
> compensation
> that is?
>
> That wasn't trying to be insulting actually. It was just pointing out
> that, well, we are all mongrels. If race ever did exist, it has long
> since been whiped out. There have been no significant "isolated"
> peoples for about 600 years now. The definition of isolation is that
> NONE of them interbreed with others. For as soon as any do, then that
> group just become a small blip on the spectrum that has a very
> shallow
> slope (where a cliff used to be) merging them with the rest of
> humanity. It only takes 3-4 generations and that time has WAY passed
> for all (racial) groups.
>
> Richard (AKA DIPics)
>
> Stephen Schwartz wrote:
>
> > If you want we can continue the thread here or on my blog.
> >
> > --
> > Stephen M. Schwartz
> > Pathology
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Stephen M. Schwartz
> Pathology
Saturday, December 02, 2006
More on Drinking Liberally
This is a continuation of a previous post. So, as the year draws to an end, I have made a video about the 2006 election. The video is built around my photographs at the Montlake Tavern, where each Tuesday night liberals from Seattle gather to beerify and gather about the liberal blogger in chief for Seattle, David Goldstein. The essay begins at Move-On headquarters at a meeting to make phone calls for Move-On sponsored candidates and progresses through the election season at the tavern.
I have posted it to YouTube as a video .. quality there is pretty bad so anyone who know me can come by and get a DVD. Hope you enjoy the essay and lets hope for a better future post Bush the lesser.
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