From: mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day)
Subject: Re: Is it in the Genes?
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 21:31:40 GMT

   claypool@seas.gwu.edu (Hyok H. Lee) writes:

   : mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day) writes:
   : Well, I see that you (Hyok Lee) are still on the net, although there
   : was a noticeable silence after I asked for some support of the
   : supposedly "scientific" theory of races. 

   Don't take it as a victory to degenerate.  I had schoolwork to do other
   than hack at a computer all day.

That's the whole point, twit.  I'm asking you to do some "schoolwork",
on a subject that's obviously important to you, as a substitute for
the time you're spending reading s.c.a.a. and writing your clueless
flames.  

Do you understand the idea of learning and research in a context other
than cramming for a test to get a grade?  That's what I'm asking you
to do.  You seem to be too busy with "schoolwork" to actually learn
anything.  Isn't it enough motivation for you to think about posting
some article on the net where you demonstrate conclusively that I
don't know what I'm talking about, that there really is support for
your position in refereed scientific journals?

   : It sure looks to me as though you're determined to cling to this
   : notion of "race" despite having no evidence to support it.  Some
   : scientist.
   : 
   : You're even getting confused between race as a descriptive tool used
   : by anthropologists and genetic "race".  When anthropologists talk
   : about races, they're talking about broad categories of physical
   : features.  Since there's a lot of variation of individuals within
   : those ranges, it's easy to have a selected individual with a European
   : ancestor or two a couple of generations back who has more "Mongoloid"
   : traits than another selected individual with no European ancestors in
   : the same number of generations.  There are *NO* "Mongoloid genes"!
   : Again, if you can find me a single piece of legitimate evidence that
   : scientists currently believe otherwise, I'll reconsider.  But I doubt
   : that you can.
   : 
   : --Mark Day
   : 
   : mday@lcs.mit.edu

   You are a fucking pathetic individual.  Do you have trouble accepting
   that everyone is created different?  

No.   

   When people speak of "race" or
   any arbitrary category that Homo Sapiens place on knowledge of the
   world, they agree on what that means.  

This is simply untrue.  People spend a lot of time arguing about those
categories, how they should be arranged, whether some or all of them
are invalid, and similar questions.  You've probably had little or no
exposure to real live scientists "doing science" if you have this kind
of high-school-textbook "everyone agrees on meaning" notion.

   If you think that race is 
   something that is something that is so fleeting, then so is everythingj
   that you have thought of as "knowledge."  The logic that you are applyingj
   to this subject is similar to what David Hume did to reality.  He concluded
   that reality can only be confirmed as long as one perceives it at the
   present.

I think you probably understand Hume as little as you understand
biology.  We're not talking here about the difficulty of confirming
the existence of reality, we're talking about having an objective
system of categorization.  My complaint is that "race" as it is
usually understood is a culturally-sensitive categorization: for
example, Japanese in Japan do not consider themselves to be racially
similar to Koreans or Samoans, although Americans would tend to call
them all "Asians".  I don't believe that you can come up with a
culturally-independent grouping of humans into "races", such that you
can claim that two different observers will (with very high
probability) categorize a given population identically.  I believe
that you can do this with all scientifically-useful distinctions.

   The way you have rejected the possibility that human beings can be 
   different leads me to believe that you are extremely insecure about
   yourself or you are a racist. 

I haven't rejected human differences.  I reject only the concept of
race.  Each human is a unique collection of traits, but there are no
meaningful biological categories between individual and species.
There are no races, there are no subspecies.  

I continue to be baffled about how you reach the conclusion that I am
racist or insecure.  I mean, I might well be, but I just don't follow
your argument at all.  It's utterly incoherent.

   The maddening thing is that you would
   probably agree that a black person has darker skin than a white person.
   If you want to be an anal retentive about it, yes I'll admit it, there
   are black individuals who have lighter complexions than whites of perhaps
   mediterranean background.  

   CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS SIMPLE CONCEPT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   NO MATTER WHAT SCIENCE REVEALS ABOUT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GROUPS OF
   HUMAN BEINGS, IT STILL MEANS THAT EVERYONE DESERVES EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO
   BE ALL THAT THEY CAN BE.

Can someone else help me out?  What on earth is this person saying?
It's obviously VERY IMPORTANT, or else why all the SHOUTING?

   Perhaps you have based your idea of equality on the assumption that all
   humans are created equal.  WRONG!!  I obviously am smarter than you,
   but you, although you are a complete dimwit, deserve the same rights as
   I to succeed in this society.  SEE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR IDIOTIC 
   NOTION AND MINE!!??  By your barbaric logic, if pygmies are indeed found
   to be less intelligent than the rest of the world, then they should not
   be allowed the same opportunities as us, while by my logic, they would
   be still a part of the big family that we call mankind, and be afforded
   the chance as us.

I have to admit, maybe Hyok Lee has a point.

Lee's arguments *seem* to be random gibberish, and Lee is *apparently*
too lazy or too stupid to go find supporting references when asked.
Further, when challenged on these issues, Lee *seems* to simply engage
in further leaps of illogic, shouting, rudeness, and ad hominem
attacks.

But perhaps I am just too obtuse to understand Lee's carefully-crafted
arguments, and its subtleties continue to escape me.

--Mark Day

mday@lcs.mit.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american