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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:28
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 Good one LotM! A very creative way of demonstrating the shallow nature of the concept of "race." (and using your example of blood type, it would be easy to port my earlier questions to this new format and ask them....with the effect being that it quickly becomes painfully obvious that the answer is..."it doesn't matter" ) (ex: "What if Japher (AB+) got a pint of LotM's blood?...would he still be considered a member of the AB+ band, or would he join the O gang?")
"Race" is something that we (the HUMAN Race) have spent far too much time and energy on. It is, in the final analysis, a categorization effort that has 1) utterly failed to do anything but promote misery, and 2) not shed the first bit of positive light on the human condition, and so is best seen for what it is, and dispensed with entire.
There are, in our singular HUMAN race, tribes, ethnic groups, and pigmentation variations, and cultural differences, and these have, and continue to be "good enough" excuses for us to kill each other without inventing the construct of "different races" to provide us with further reasons.
Maybe one day we'll grow up....as a race....
-=Vel=-
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Jaguar
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Montgomery County, MD
Apr 2000
time: 00:28
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Certainly race exists in that a hispanic man and a hispanic woman will have a kid that looks hispanic. You can't argue with that.
You also can't dispute there are differences - that East African people, or people of East African descent win marathons all the time.
However, you can easily argue that facial topography and skin color have nothing to do with the discrepancy stated above.
Last edited by Jaguar on 05-06-2003 at 23:43
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
Certainly race exists in that a hispanic man and a hispanic woman will have a kid that looks hispanic. You can't argue with that.
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A mexican man and a mexican woman will have kids who look Puerto Rican??? i dont think so.
OTOH, a brown skinned man and a brown skinned woman will have kids with brown skin. Probably.
And an o type man and o type woman will have kids who are o type. 100% certain.
And a tall man and a tall woman will have kids who are tall - probably, holding constant for enviroment.
So which is "race" ?? skin color??? blood type??? Height??? instead of saying that whites are a race, with tall and short subgroups, why not say that tall people are a race, with black and white subgroups??
All youve demonstrated above is that children resemble their parents in heritable charecteristics. The notion of "race" is that there are large human groups, who share common ancestry to such a degree, that they have a wide range of charecteristics in common. IE that the heritable charecteristics correlate strongly with each other, and correlate with social group and geography.
And that is precisly what is contested. In some cases lack of correlation is explained by geography - sweden and Nigeria may both have relative tall populatios, as compared to Spain, yet it is not generally contested that Spanish and swedes are "closer" in origin than swedes and Nigerians, because of known facts of history and geography - But heritable blood types are distributed all around the world, among different skin colors, with no clear explanation in most cases. One can say that the "black race" includes people with A, B and O genes, as does the "white race" one cant explain how these different "families" ended up with the same blood type genes. One can as easily say that there are A, B and O races, and that modern africans are descended from a mix of those races, who all tended to evolve toward darker skin over the years. Ditto modern europeans are descended from THE SAME three races, who all lightened up over the years. This would contradict the implicit assumption of "race" that peoples with different modern day geographic origin are relatively homogenous as far as important inherited traits.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Japher
I don't discriminate between women, if their hot their hot
---
followed by
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The notion of "race" is that there are large human groups, who share common ancestry to such a degree, that they have a wide range of charecteristics in common. [/quote]
Can you show me how these two are different? Sounds the same to me. [/QUOTE]
one is a statement about individual inheritance - the other is a statement about large groups.
Example - in california, there are people whose greatgrandparents migrated from New york, Illinois, virginia.
A given individual with 2 brown eyed parents likely will have brown eyes. such will be the case whether his parents are from new york, illinois, or virginia. or a combination. the average percentages with brown eyes may differ for each state. nonetheless no one would call being a "new Yorker" a race. Nor would they call being brown eyed a "race" - its just a charecteristic. Now if most New yorkers shared a common ancestry, and had a wide variety traits in common, perhaps you could identify a "new york" race. In fact, however you cant. as can plainly be seen, most traits differ much more within populations descended from these states, than between them.
Now for new york, illinois, and virginia, substiture Europe, africa, and asia (or whatever division of human geography you prefer) For almost all significant traits the same holds true - differences within any particular population grouping are greater than those between groupings. only exceptions are those like pigmentation, for which there was local selection.
Now how is this POSSIBLE, you might ask, if children resemble there parents??? think again of new york, illinois and virginia. If each had been settled by one male and one female, then indeed new yorkers would differ from illinoisan and virginians on a wide range of traits - and their descendents in Calif similarly. However we know historically that those 3 states were settled by many different people from different places, and at different times. Well guess what - that applies to Asia, Africa, and europe as well. Europe was probably originally settled by migrants out of Africa 100,000 years ago - but not by one couple, but by several, with a range of genes. And there was a further in migration from the middle east, associated with the expansion of agriculture, around 6000 BC. And yet another with the Indo-european expansion. And various movements associated with the Roman empire. and various movements in from inner asia - huns, mongols, etc. And movements associated with the islamic empire.
So europe (for example) resembles "new york" more than you might expect - and so its no surprise that europeans have considerable genetic diversity - and thus that the "white race" turns out not to be particularly distinct genetically, and thus NOT a race - any more that O postive people, or people with large ear lobes, or whatever, are a race.
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Japher
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Ook! Ook! Ack! Ack! Ack!
Jun 2002
time: 05:28
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I agree, or can see, what you are saying LotM, but if it applies on an individual level, and a society is made up of a number of individuals why can it not scale up to a "race" baring level?
quote:
guess what - that applies to Asia, Africa, and europe as well. Europe was probably originally settled by migrants out of Africa 100,000 years ago - but not by one couple, but by several, with a range of genes. And there was a further in migration from the middle east, associated with the expansion of agriculture, around 6000 BC. And yet another with the Indo-european expansion. And various movements associated with the Roman empire. and various movements in from inner asia - huns, mongols, etc. And movements associated with the islamic empire.
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Yet, you can't deny the differences that still exist. Origin has nothing to do with current status of being from a certain race, that depends on the linear ascension of these people. Granted that as the ability to travel great distances increased terrain features became less predominant as a racial determinant factor, but that was only recently (relativly) that such travel existed. Races existed prior to that (as some may believe), intervention only further blurred the lines of race, or in many case changed the perception of that race.
Another thing, why is it so common an idea that all human life began in one, and only one spot? If Earth was the ideal place for such evolution to take place could not be just as probable that occured in multiple places on the planet? Highly unlikely I am sure, but it was also highly unlikely that humans would even evolve into what we are today...
All I am looking at as that in order to determine origion answers that real DNA studies need to take place. Especially with all the migrations, inbreeding, genocide, and development phases that humans have undergone since the history of time. The answers are there, but it seems to find that answer one will have to ask some pretty ugly questions.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Japher
I agree, or can see, what you are saying LotM, but if it applies on an individual level, and a society is made up of a number of individuals why can it not scale up to a "race" baring level?
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as a statistical phenomenon? sure. but thats not a race. I have brown eyes. My daughter has brown eyes. Say 50% of my adult neighbors have brown eyes. Odds are 50% of the kids born in my neighborhood will have brown eyes. So does that make my neighborhood a "race"? if that is so race does exist, but its not a particularly meaningful concept. Surely you mean something more then that when you say race is a concept.
What i think you mean is that in the past places experienced less in migration than my 21st c US neighborhood. Everybody lived in the same little valley for thousands of years, by which point they not only shared the same pigmentation, but blood type, and most other traits as well. "mixing" is therefore a recent phenomenon.
and it is that idea that is false. People may have been less mobile then today, but given the pace of genetic change, they did NOT stay in their little valley long enough to become homogeneous across most traits. nomadism and migration have been around for a VERY long time. if race was ever a meaningful category, it ceased to be one before the modern "racial groupings" were identified.
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
First, the indigenous people of South Africa, the Hottentots, are actually rather light skinned. You would assume that they are mixed to look at them. This is because South Africa is actually rather far from the Equator and has a Mediterranian climate, rather than equatorial. The reason that most Blacks in South Africa are dark skinned is because they are decended from the Bantu, an equatorial group that migrated to the area only recently, about the same time as the Dutch showed up.
Two, South African "race" was legislated. A Black person from the US who went to SA was legally white. Indians were considered Coloreds, even though many Indians are very white looking (generally upper class Aryans who kept their bloodlines relatively free from indigenous Indians).
In fact, race only exists in places where it is legislated into existence. If the old race laws still applied, many white Americans would not be considered white under the law there. If you had one drop of colored blood (Indian, Black, Asian, etc) you were colored, not white. Of course, if you look white, you can pass, no one cares. So, many Black people in the US were legally white.
Asians who live near the Equator are much darker than Mongolians. Dravidians are almost Black in skin color. American Indians even showed some color division. Melaneseans are darker than Polynesians, which is why the Australian aborigines are darker than the New Zealand Maoris. |
That's very interesting Che, but what I'd really like to focus on are the deliberate deceptions in the TV program I mentioned. Do you care to defend them?
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Japher
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Ook! Ook! Ack! Ack! Ack!
Jun 2002
time: 05:28
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No, I don't buy any of that.
Race is different than species, at least in the connotation that Cali is talking about it. Genus, Species, Race IMO
We are all homo sapians, there is no defying that, but there could be a sub-species called "race" that is defined by gentic differences. Differences that give people a certain look, a certain energy, a certain trait... Yeah, we could define these races by hair color only, but in general we tend to define them as some one who has their origins in a certain area with certain physical characteristics. Also, a dominant majority of people from those areas (meaning having ancestral origions from that area) tend to be similar in looks, traits, and other characteristics... That is a race.
This is a fact... Ppl keep saying that there is no scientific fact basis for such assumptions. WHAT! Observation is the key to sciences. If there is a line up of three white guys and Jackie Chan you will able to note the differences, significant differences. That is science. Now, if it exists on a cellular level... I don't know? Nobody does. Obviously the difference is genetic on the surface, what is to say it doesn't go deeper. Heck, it could even be possible that people who are pale skinned are more subseptable to skin cancer not because they lack pigment, but because they have the mutant gene active when they are born!!
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Caligastia
Natch. This is of course the case with anyone who challenges the current orthodoxy on race. We're all klansmen out ta git ya!! Boo!
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If you were a colored boy, natch, I'd figure you'd be a black nationalist, not a Klucker. Whenever you post one of these threads though, in my mind, I hear the voice of the Homer Stokes character from O Brother, Where Art Thou: "All you boys is miscegenated! These boys is not white. I tell you, these boys is not white."
"Is you is or is you ain't mah constituency?" 
quote:
Obsessive? I haven't posted a race thread for months. This must be a topic you find challenging. |
Not at all. But out of all the people here in OT, you're pretty much the exclusive starter of race threads. Most of the human species just don't give a damn. And a good portion of the threads you do start are about race, in one way or another.
quote:
That's just dandy, but it has nothing to do with the fact that mitochondrial DNA is totally useless for determining race at the individual level, or for comparing the racial ancestry of one individual to another. Do you see how this relates to the TV program I mentioned or do I need to simplify things for you? |
Of course, any kind of DNA testing is useless for proving a concept that has no genetic validity, but is just a social construct.
For race to have any scientific validity, there would be specific features that would allow an individual to be genetically classed as a member of that race. i.e., you're not comparing an individual to another individual, you're comparing an individual to a distinct gene pool (a population group), to see if you can determine that the individual in question is more closely related to one group or another. If you can't make that determination, then your concept of race as a genetic reality goes down the tubes.
So tell me, how many races do you think there are, and who gets to belong in the "white" one, since I'm sure that's the be all and end all destination?
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
Actually Cali, what MtG is saying is that if race where a salient human characteristic then mitochondiral DNA would give us racial differences The fact that mitochondrial DNA can not be used to "prove an individuals race" shows that race is not a significant genetic difference.
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No. The reason mitochondrial DNA cannot be used to determine an individual's race is because is 100% inherited from your mother. Therefore someone whose racial ancestry is black with the exception of their great, great, great...etc...grandmother who was white will have the same mitchondrial DNA as someone who is all white. Your matrilineal ancestor of only five generations back contributed all of your mitochondrial DNA but only 1/32 of your total genes. If you go back ten generations it is 1/1024 - a miniscule amount - which would have almost no effect on overall racial character. So it is blindingly obvious that mitochondrial DNA markers tell you almost nothing about the overall racial ancestry of any individual.
Which brings me to my original point...
The makers of Race: The Power of an Illusion deliberately misled the audience by using mitochondrial DNA to test the overall racial ancestry of the students on the program.
Got it?
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:28
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Japher:
What you observe are adaptations by the human body to best aclimatize itself to a certain region. Over time these adaptations will get better and better, which means that on the surface the populations of two distinct places will change. but the only traits that will change are those that need to change in order to aclimatize oneself, like skin color (to regulate UV intake), body shape (to regulate heat loss) and changes to make on less suseptible to local disease.
Once a human populaltion decides to change location and move to a very diffferent climate, those that survive will being the progress to change to aadpt. No traits will be kept in the end, if they make survival in the new environment difficult. Talke a bunch of scandinavians, ut them in Equatorial africa, and limit how much they mix with local populations, and in 20,000 years they will be black, ahve curly hair, and so forth.
As for mutant genes, that is simply a normal function of genetic drift and having an insular population.
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
If you were a colored boy, natch, I'd figure you'd be a black nationalist, not a Klucker. Whenever you post one of these threads though, in my mind, I hear the voice of the Homer Stokes character from O Brother, Where Art Thou: "All you boys is miscegenated! These boys is not white. I tell you, these boys is not white."
"Is you is or is you ain't mah constituency?" |
Don't know that movie. Sorry.
quote:
Not at all. But out of all the people here in OT, you're pretty much the exclusive starter of race threads. Most of the human species just don't give a damn. And a good portion of the threads you do start are about race, in one way or another.
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If most people don't give a damn, then why to the posts on these kinds of threads always go through the roof??
I reckon I've started more rugby threads than race threads. The race threads just get noticed.
quote:
Of course, any kind of DNA testing is useless for proving a concept that has no genetic validity, but is just a social construct.
For race to have any scientific validity, there would be specific features that would allow an individual to be genetically classed as a member of that race. i.e., you're not comparing an individual to another individual, you're comparing an individual to a distinct gene pool (a population group), to see if you can determine that the individual in question is more closely related to one group or another. If you can't make that determination, then your concept of race as a genetic reality goes down the tubes. |
You know as well as I do that a person's race, and indeed the proportions of their racial mix can be determined unmistakably with the right genetic information.
quote:
So tell me, how many races do you think there are, and who gets to belong in the "white" one, since I'm sure that's the be all and end all destination? |
You keep assuming I'm a garden variety white nationalist. My beliefs on human racial origins are in the Urantia book, but I'm sure you would only ridicule them so why should I bother sharing?
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Japher
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Ook! Ook! Ack! Ack! Ack!
Jun 2002
time: 05:28
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So, GePap, you don't believe that those adaptions could be significant enough to be labled as a different race as I definded it (a sub-species)?
quote:
you're comparing an individual to a distinct gene pool |
A gene pool that is not adequatly defined. Thus, we do not have enough information at this time to actually settle this debate.
As long as we have people taking measurements there is hope, but when they measure the wrong things (as in the makers of this TV show) there is no way of really knowing. It is bad science, that show made a fool of itself, and while the resulting message was one of the greater purpose it was inherently flawed.
It would be like saying that the sun is yellow, and a banana is yellow, so a banana and the sun are the same thing... Looking for simularities does not classify the similarities nor does it even acknowledge the differences...
We all have are beginnings from the same gene pool, yeah that would be nice to here, but making up the facts doesn't prove a thing. And that goes for both sides of the debate.
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by Caligastia
You know as well as I do that a person's race, and indeed the proportions of their racial mix can be determined unmistakably with the right genetic information. |
In case you really don't know, perhaps you should take a look at this website:
www.ancestrybydna.com
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
There are only "deliberate deceptions" because mitochondrial DNA (or any other kind) won't show what you want to believe exists.
If you want to find a biological justification for the notion of race, mitochondrial DNA is essential for proving connection to a specific population group.
A classic example was the ~10,000 year old skeleton found in Columbia river sediments, that was ordered turned over to local natives for reburial, although it had unusual skeletal features (primarily the extra occipital suture associated generally, with so-called caucasians) that made it distinct from native skeletons from the area.
Mitochondrial DNA studies would be the only way to determine if that individual was more closely related to one population group or another. |
Wrong. And I've already explained why.
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05-06-2003 23:26
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