From: gk31@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gag-Lae  Kim)
Subject: Re: Is it in the Genes?
Reply-To: gk31@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gag-Lae  Kim)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 04:24:34 GMT

In article <MDAY.92Oct7174115@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu> mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day) writes:
>   gk31@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gag-Lae  Kim) writes:
>
>	   I suppose my understanding of race is quite different from
>   yours or your researched definitions.  My definition of race is in
>   perspective of both biological and cultural aspects. Cultural and
>   biological contribution to a given race cannot be separated to view
>   independently.  Although there isn't a case where there's absolutely
>   no overlap of cultural and biological aspects between one race and the
>   other (the race that we commonly separate), significant differences
>   can be found, in both cultural and biologica sense, among races that
>   are commonly defined in anthropological context.
>
>I think you are asserting that "race" is both a cultural and
>biological construct.  I have never argued against "race" being a
>cultural construct, so we can drop that issue.  You do not actually
>provide any evidence for your claim that it is a biological construct.
>If your "biological" notion of "race" cannot, in fact, be separated
>from your cultural notion of race, then it is not biology.  Sorry.  I
>simply refuse to dignify a culturally-dependent pseudoscience with the
>name "biology".  I believe that most professional biologists would go
>along with me on this.
>
>	   Following your logic, I can see why you say "there are no
>   race, and subspecies."  But, I can only see your logic being true in
>   sub-molecular level in biological sense (slight exaggeration).  
>   Obviously, I am sure you are aware of the cultural differenc in 
>   this world.  Again, these two things cannot be separated.  
>
>Sorry, but again I disagree.  The point at which something is either
>true or false depending on which country I'm in is also the point at
>which science has gone out the window.  I know that scientists are
>human beings in a cultural context, and that limits their ability in
>any given place or time to achieve genuine objectivity.  Nevertheless,
>I believe that objectivity is the goal, and that failures to achieve
>it are (eventually) viewed as errors, not accepted as good science.
>Both Lysenkoism in the former Soviet Union and "German physics" vs.
>"Jewish physics" in Germany before World War II are now viewed as
>dreadful mistakes, not accepted as the inevitable intertwining of
>culture and science.
>
>	   About coming up with culturally independent names for race...
>   Yes, that is impossible.  And it seems like those naming was done for
>   convinience sake than anything else.  Yet I think it serves purpose,
>   just as much as differentiating field of study into certain names.
>   With your logic, philosophy, math, biology, biochemistry, history,
>   sociology, psychology, and many others are all same to me.
>
>Well, that's actually an interesting analogy.  Fields of study are
>also a social construct, and their boundaries shift.  In Buckminster
>Fuller's words, if you throw an apple into a pond, Nature doesn't need
>to have an interdepartmental meeting where the biologists decide that
>"their" apple will combine with the chemists' water to produce the
>physicists's waves.  
>
>I don't have anything against such categorizations, but I don't think
>that anyone thinks of them as "scientific".  I have yet to see an
>article in a refereed journal where someone claims to have determined
>the "correct" classification of all knowledge.
>
>All I've argued is that "race", like a field of study, is a social
>construct.  If you (or someone else) want to argue that "race" is a
>scientific construct, I'll want a tighter definition of it.
>
>--Mark Day
>
>mday@lcs.mit.edu

	I guess the ultimate question is, what is science, and how
should scientific data be interpreted.  Every scientific "facts" are
based on assumptions, assumptions that are commonly accepted with or
without knowing.  So what can be more scientific categorization?  If
you believe that there's no difference between what people call race,
then I accept your point (although your theory came about by
disproving other's theory, not by "scientific and objective facts").
But many scientists who assumed the existence of difference in race,
will tell you that there are significant difference among difference
race.  Of course all these facts were produced based upon assumption,
but what isn't?

	Kurtis Kim
	gk31@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu