[boru]

Hey "Malcolm X" I wasn't referring to you in the comment, I was talking to the White Devil

You've produced no evidence to substantiate the idea that it is a social construct. Orange and I have shown evidence that it isn't.

What Evidence?

orange simply provided evidence that a clear majority within the scientific community thinks that genetics has more to do with their intellectualism with the concept of "race" this term is yet to be defined on this thread, so none of us now what we're talking about until somebody defines their terms. Neither you nor orange have substantiated that race is NOT a social construct.

You are what you are, but "American" isn't a genetic/anthropological term. It's an ethno-national group, generally a subset of a race, but "American" happens to be a multracial ethnicity.

Ethnicity is marked by linguistic and cultural roots, carried through breeding. Some ethnicities assimilate into more dominant ones, becoming obsolete, yet still a part of the ethnicity they adopt. Inbreeding of a genetically isolated population causes faster genetic drift and less genetic diversity, yet all of us retain the amount of brain plasticity to adapt. How come some of my closest Nubian and Bantu friends are geniuses? White Man teach them that?

[boru]

Furthermore, if you were given a bunch of blood samples from 100 people from anywhere on the planet and challenged to sort them by 'race', you wouldn't have a hope in hell, no matter how good your equipment.

I couldn't disagree more. There are genetic markers which can let genetecists know if you're of middle eastern descent, or if us Celts are indeed related to Proto-Indo-Europeans (like the Basques, which we are). Modern HumanY-chromosomal male genetic lineage goes back 60,000 years white the Mitochondrial female lineage goes back 140,000 years. Just a fun fact.

[sploop!]

Yeah, but the point is those markers only tell you what a person's heritage is. They say nothing about the person's 'race'. And hell, you might do a test for a Middle Eastern marker and decide you are looking at an Arab, whilst completely missing the fact that they also have markers from umpteen other ancestors as well. It's utterly useless.

[ElDiabloBlanco]

I couldn't disagree more. There are genetic markers which can let genetecists know if you're of middle eastern descent, or if us Celts are indeed related to Proto-Indo-Europeans (like the Basques, which we are). Modern HumanY-chromosomal male genetic lineage goes back 60,000 years white the Mitochondrial female lineage goes back 140,000 years. Just a fun fact.

Precisely. And there you have it, race. A genetic subgroup of humanity. You're arguing against yourself, here.

Yeah, but the point is those markers only tell you what a person's heritage is. They say nothing about the person's 'race'.

Wait, since when was race anything other than metaheritage?

And hell, you might do a test for a Middle Eastern marker and decide you are looking at an Arab, whilst completely missing the fact that they also have markers from umpteen other ancestors as well. It's utterly useless.

First of all, humans really are not as mixed as you're making them out to be. Race is a combination of phenotype and genotype, not just one of the two.

Secondly, "Arab" is a fuzzy term. Lebanese and Syrian Arabs, as well as Iranians and Kabyle Berbers, are genetically and phenotypically close to Southern Europeans, while Arabian Arabs are not.

This is wrong. Within the genus 'homo', genetic difference of less than 1% is to be found. We are, all of us, at least 99.5% similar to any one else on the planet

Actually, no, you're the one who's wrong. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/19 ... 051724.htm There's a creditable guy trying to say race does not exist, who claims, at the group level, humans are 15% different.

Also, http://med.stanford.edu/news_releases/2 ... l-data.htm Guess Stanford University are just evil racists then, huh?

[boru]

Okay so can we all agree that this argument has become one over semantics and not a solid issue?

The White Devil is talking about haplogroups and phenotypes while sploop! and I are talking about it as a colloquialism (i.e. Black, White & Middle Eastern), not empirically based data.

Geez.

[ElDiabloBlanco]

The White Devil is talking about haplogroups and phenotypes while sploop! and I are talking about it as a colloquialism (i.e. Black, White & Middle Eastern), not empirically based data.

Yeah, exactly. My view on it is scientific, and I don't accept "Middle Eastern" or "Hispanic" as valid groupings.

[U184]

one is expected to use any and all tools at your disposal, all ways.

[sploop!]

Haplogroups and Phenotypes have nothing to do with race. Race suggests hard boundaries in the genetic make up of groups of people. The actuality is that there are no such boundaries, so they get invented to give us an excuse to differentiate. This is science warped to fit a particular view of humanity.

[QatzelOk]

one is expected to use any and all tools at your disposal, all ways.

If you're trying to win, or if you're trying to learn?

[U184]

both.

[sploop!]

What are we trying to do here?

[U184]

I cant tell you about WE but I tried to make a post that addressed my opinion that strict rules that regard racial opinion as racism was getting a bit out of hand.

Goes to show one can not make a horse drink the water.

[sploop!]

You should try again, in my opinion. Try to direct the thread to the area you want to discuss - I suspect the stuff on biology and race was well off-topic...

[boru]

The White Devil was obviously just playing games. He knows what we meant, he was just refusing to accept the slight recognition of the social construct of race. He still has not provided proof that race is an accepted scientific term. I'm waiting.

[Dave]

Race really doesn't exist in any sensibly objective way

Why do people keep saying this?

[sploop!]

Because it's true?

Maybe we need (as I am sure was suggested earlier) some definitions.

I found this quite interesting... (my bolding)

race

(rās) pronunciation

n.

1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.
3. A genealogical line; a lineage.
4. Humans considered as a group.
5. Biology.
1. An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies.
2. A breed or strain, as of domestic animals.
6. A distinguishing or characteristic quality, such as the flavor of a wine.

[French, from Old French, from Old Italian razza, race, lineage.]

USAGE NOTE The notion of race is nearly as problematic from a scientific point of view as it is from a social one. European physical anthropologists of the 17th and 18th centuries proposed various systems of racial classifications based on such observable characteristics as skin color, hair type, body proportions, and skull measurements, essentially codifying the perceived differences among broad geographic populations of humans. The traditional terms for these populations—Caucasoid (or Caucasian), Mongoloid, Negroid, and in some systems Australoid—are now controversial in both technical and nontechnical usage, and in some cases they may well be considered offensive. (Caucasian does retain a certain currency in American English, but it is used almost exclusively to mean “white” or “European” rather than “belonging to the Caucasian race,” a group that includes a variety of peoples generally categorized as nonwhite.) The biological aspect of race is described today not in observable physical features but rather in such genetic characteristics as blood groups and metabolic processes, and the groupings indicated by these factors seldom coincide very neatly with those put forward by earlier physical anthropologists. Citing this and other points—such as the fact that a person who is considered black in one society might be nonblack in another—many cultural anthropologists now consider race to be more a social or mental construct than an objective biological fact.

source

The italicised text kind of sums up my position. Do we all agree with this definition?

[Dave]

I agree with definitions one, three, and five.

Definition two is archaic and fell out of use decades ago.

And sorry, given these definitions, how does race not exist in an objective way? Cultural anthropologists, ie, Franz Boas, are full of shit and most modern genetic research has shown that the physical anthropologists were essentially correct. Social curiosities like the one drop rule hardly change the fact that race is a valid biological classification and that many of our social conceptions of race have a biological basis.

[QatzelOk]

I agree with definitions one, three, and five.

Always read the fine print before you sing on to an idealogy, Dave.

That's why sploop italicized it just for you.

[Dave]

Always read the fine print before you sing on to an idealogy, Dave.

That's why sploop italicized it just for you.

Uh...and I'm guessing you didn't notice my response to the usage note since I didn't bother italicizing it?