Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 21

message: ===1===
I saw the "cleanup" notice and had a look. So far I have seen mostly minor syntax and vocabulary issues, however one sentence leaves me clueless:
Darwin also pointed out the arbitrary use of any number of categories to divide up the human species, which is a major problem of racial theories.
Is this supposed to mean that Darwin remarked on the use of some number of categories by other people in a way that he considered arbitrary? Is the writer of this sentence saying that Darwin used an arbitrary list of categories in the course of his own writing? The sentence needs to be rewritten. P0M 00:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Shall I cut this part out?P0M 07:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would help if someone could provide a citation for where Darwin said this. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

text: See the bottom of this section. Darwin seemed to be partial to the idea of race, but, as the brilliant biologist he was, he could not deny that race distinctions were largely based on arbitrarily placed borders. FilipeS 13:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I do not understand your query.  Physical anthropologists often rely on the spatial distribution of human remains.  There is nothing abstract about this, it is all very concrete.  Based on dating techniques, the matrix, as well as features of the remains they can make claims about which remains are older and which are younger.  These claims are perhaps a little abstract but they are all based on concrete data.  Then, anthropologists try to make inferences about human evolution - this is more abstract.  This is just how anthropologists work, I am not sure what more you are asking for. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 

message: I saw the "cleanup" notice and had a look. So far I have seen mostly minor syntax and vocabulary issues, however one sentence leaves me clueless:
Darwin also pointed out the arbitrary use of any number of categories to divide up the human species, which is a major problem of racial theories.
Is this supposed to mean that Darwin remarked on the use of some number of categories by other people in a way that he considered arbitrary? Is the writer of this sentence saying that Darwin used an arbitrary list of categories in the course of his own writing? The sentence needs to be rewritten. P0M 00:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Shall I cut this part out?P0M 07:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would help if someone could provide a citation for where Darwin said this. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

text: See the bottom of this section. Darwin seemed to be partial to the idea of race, but, as the brilliant biologist he was, he could not deny that race distinctions were largely based on arbitrarily placed borders. FilipeS 13:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 1

message: Another passage:
Leiberman and Jackson (1995), however, have noted that this model depends on several findings relevant to race: (1) that marked morphological contrasts exist between individuals found at the center and at the perimeter of Middle Pleistocene range of the genus Homo; (2) that many features can be shown to emerge at the edge of that range before they develop at the center; and (3) that these features exhibit great tenacity through time. Regional variations in these features can thus be taken as evidence for long term differences among genus Homo individuals that prefigure different races among present-day Homo sapiens individuals.
This passage seems to assume a center (origin) and radial spread of humans from the center in all directions followed by mutations at various points near the perimeter. It reminds me a little of a schematic circuit for a radio that has little obvious relationship to the way components are actually arranged and wired. Is the presentation of Leiberman and Jackson really that abstract? P0M 07:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not understand your query.  Physical anthropologists often rely on the spatial distribution of human remains.  There is nothing abstract about this, it is all very concrete.  Based on dating techniques, the matrix, as well as features of the remains they can make claims about which remains are older and which are younger.  These claims are perhaps a little abstract but they are all based on concrete data.  Then, anthropologists try to make inferences about human evolution - this is more abstract.  This is just how anthropologists work, I am not sure what more you are asking for. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 2=

message: I realize that the following definition has been formed by quoting Levin, but, is this statement the clearest that can be formed on the basis of what he actually said? To me it seems rather rough and disjointed.
In "Cladistic taxonomy ... the basic taxon [is] the genealogical unit, ancestors-plus-line-(or tree)-of-descent, what according to the present analysis races are." 
At minimum I would rather it ended with "what, according to the present analysis, races are." Isn't the definition rather circular? "Race means the genealogical unit...which is what races are"?P0M 07:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 3

message: * The article is overly long and disconnected.
* In several parts, it sounds excessively apologetic towards racists, racialists, and neoracialists.
* It needs to be more focused. There needs to be a section where the common notion of race is presented and dissected, along with all the demolishing arguments against it systematically explained.
* The article needs to make a very careful distinction between ancestry, as measured by modern DNA-analysis techniques, and race. It needs to explain how they are different things, or it will risk giving the impression that genetics has vindicated racialism, when the opposite is true. As a matter of fact, it might be a good idea to have a separate article for fossil- and gene-based paleoanthropology. The tracing of the ancient migrations of human populations risks being mistaken for evidence of racial divergence.
* Race in Law Enforcement is a controversial topic which should probably have an article of its own.
FilipeS 13:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and made some changes, myself. I hope they've improved the article. FilipeS 14:44, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism

message: In his book The Race Myth, Joseph L. Graves Jr. effectively disproved the biological concept of race. He writes:
What Does it Take to Be a Race?
To qualify as a biological race (or subspecies or variety), an animal or plant has to meet one of two requirements:
1. it can have its own distinct lineage, meaning that it evolved in isolation that it never (or rarely) mated with individuals outside its borders, or
2. the genetic distence between population and another has to be significantly greater than the genetic variability that exists within the genetic variability that exists within the populations. 
Both of these criteria are proven false in his book.
Dr. Graves is a renouned Geneticist and Biologist, who has had his articles printed in both the New York and Los Angeles Times, and is University Core Director and Professor of Biological Sciences at Farleigh Dickinson University.
As such, I think this article needs massive cleanup.
:PC science is almost as bad as far-right-wing science. The truth is usually in the middle.
c:How pathetic! You should know that science describes many animals as separate species, yet these "species" freely interbreed and create fertile "new" species. And we can't speak about races in humans? What about Australian aborigines, who haven't mixed with other human groups for 50 000 years? Does dr Graves mention them? And what about Khoisans and Pygmies? Please don't list "New York Times" in connection with race. It is one of the most politically correct (and most demagogic) newspapers in the world. It tells much about the scientific level of dr Graves. Centrum99 21:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fertile new species?  Name one. P0M 02:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Find something about the families Callichthyidae (Corydoras) and Loricariidae. You will get a headache from it. Centrum99 23:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: He has a PhD. and is a professor of biology.  He has a book published by Rutgerts University Press.  He has been a Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation - both very competitive and prestigious.  He is a member of the external advisory board for the National Human Genome Center.  Now, tell us, Centrum99, what level of science education and achievement are you at?  So far, all we know is that you are ignorant and like to insult people who know more than you. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a discussion, where one can't really bet on the victory of common sense. So far I haven't insulted people, who knew more than me. All the anti-racial mythologists, with which I disputed, constantly knew nothing about the topic and only parroted bluffs of PC professors, PhDs, investigators, external advisory board members etc. They can't do anything else, after all, because the results of genetic research that we now already have largely confirm the old racial division of traditional anthropology - albeit with some corrections of mutual genetic relationships that were mistakenly postulated on the basis of the limited possibilities of then anthropology. If a group of people or animals has been isolated for tens of thousands of years (or even longer) and has acquired specific physical and mental features enabling to cope with the surrounding enviroment that differ from mental and physical features of other populations of the same species - how we should call it? From time out of mind, people call it "race". Oh, I shouldn't forget the funny quotation "the genetic distence between a population and another has to be significantly greater than the genetic variability that exists within the populations" - damn, does that man realize, what he actually says? If the difference in every feature were so huge, it wouldn't be a difference between races, but rather between different species! Nevertheless, differences of this sort between extremely adapted human groups really exist, for example, standard deviations of body proportions in Nilotes and Eskymos don't touch at all. Of course, a Chihuahua can have an offspring with a Saint Bernard, but so can a Pygmy with a Monte Negrin. Centrum99 01:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, you can assert as much as you like, but you have to give evidence. Find "Non PC" writers and cite them. Find book and articles to support you view, but there's no point in just declaring it to be The Truth. The point about genetic variability concerns an intermediate stage in the process of speciation. Part of the problem here is the definition of "population", part is that genetic variation was never a defining feature of the race concept. Paul B 10:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We all know that this all is just playing with words, whose main aim is to erase the word "race" - and subsequently "racism" - from the vocabulary because of the events of World War II. Hence it's really not easy to argue here, because the passionate anti-racialists can simply always say that according to their opinion, the population difference is not enough large (unless it equals the difference between a human and a chimpanzee) and every division is subjective and arbitrary. After all, we can infirm everything and every taxonomy as "subjective and arbitrary", and in the end, we can abandon the whole animal taxonomy, can't we? Centrum99 22:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: That's one of the central problems here. Graves "disproves" the existence of race by defining it in a particular way and then stating that "race" does not exist because in his view this particular definition does not correspond to human diversity. The problem is that even the True Believers in race back in the '30s never defined it this way. Look at Coon's comments in the Races of Europe for example . He is clear that he does not mean what Graves claims the term must mean. Paul B 10:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that it would be important to add that the word "race" was invented by humans, not by dogs, cats, birds or other animals in which the anti-racialists find "enough large" racial difference. Hence its primary use was to describe population difference in humans. Tell dogs and other animals that they should invent their own term for the description of their population variability. Centrum99 23:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If I follow your train of thought correctly I guess I see the point that you are trying to make, but the history of the ideas of genus, species, and subspecies is well known. Even the ordinary definition of the term "species" is a bit undependable since the line is supposedly drawn between species when they cannot achieve cross-boundary reproductive success. It turns out that even some cross-genus reproductive successes are possible, and cross-species (e.g., wolf and dog) matings are sometimes pretty reliable, so that definition is rather flaky.  The resident spider expert informs me that he is pretty much turned off by the idea of identifying subspecies of spiders. He finds it subjective I believe. One definition of "race" is that it is a synonym for subspecies. Homo sapiens has only one extant subspecies. There used to be Neanderthals, but they have died out leaving Homo sapiens sapiens the sole subspecies. So all of us belong to a single "race" by that definition.  If you then say, as many of the contributors to the Race article are inclined to do, that "race" refers to "sub-subspecies," then things get even more subjective, fuzzy, etc. Maybe everybody has some idea of what "the" races are, but probably the only way we would come up with two equivalent definitions would be if the two people had collaborated on their definitions, i.e., pretty much everybody has his/her own definition. You have only to look at the variation in the number of supposed races to see that people have wildly different ideas of what the word is supposed to mean. P0M 02:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Validity of the race concept 

message: I think this edit by 71.227.70.237 should be reverted. What do you think? --NeutralPoint 01:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert? 

message: Race having a genetic basis? How can someone's race be the result of characteristics that were inherited from their parents? Are Muslims who reside in London members of the English race, Caucasian race, Western European race, Middle Eastern race, or Islamic race? Lestrade 13:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to be displaying the deductive powers of your namesake! (sorry) How can someone's race not be the result of characteristics inherited from their parents? The term race as used in this article is specifically biological, because that's the most meaningful usage. It's a truism in one sense that race is genetic. It's a truism in another that it's a "social construct". The real issue is whether some or any of the categories that have been constructed tell us anything useful about human difference. Paul B 13:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This problem seems to be another example of the ambiguity of words. Laziness, inertia, lack of imagination, and general mental indolence have resulted in a situation in which humans are unable to create new words as designations of new concepts. They use existing words, words that are already signs for specific concepts, and they apply them to new concepts. This word race designates a multitude of different concepts and is therefore almost useless. The fact that it is related to a very sensitive, emotional issue does not contribute to the goal of cooly, rationally, and logically giving the word a precise definition.Lestrade 14:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: " This word race designates a multitude of different concepts and is therefore almost useless."  This is a view held by many scientists, and I believe it is among the views represented in the article.  Other scientists hold other views and their views are represented as well, as it should be. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sign with four tildes. You don't need to then add your name again. Yes, the word race is inherently ambiguous, and you're right - the terminological inexactitude leads to a lot of the unnecessary confusion in the debate, but we can't just create new words. In the nineteenth century it was common to use expressions like "the French race", meaning "the French people". Since then, the term has been more commonly used to refer to a codification of human physical types linked to ancestry and world geography. It's usually the link between geographical and ancestral patterns that is mostly at issue, and between that problem and the logic of the various models of codification that have been used. Paul B 14:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Genetic?

message: About a month ago someone did a massive reorganization of the article.  The changes I made today reflect a partial return to the earlier state.  My main goal was to divided the article into three main sections: first, debates among biological scientists about race, second, how social scientists use it, third, its application practically.  The section on "current debates" follows the first section since it is primarily concerned with debates among life-scientists.  I deleted a section on Jensen's view of Cavalli-Sforza.  First, Jensen is a psychologist, not a biologist so the section was mislabeled.  Second, if we want extensive coverage of Cavalli-Sforza, our source should be Cavalli-Sforza and critics, not Jensen.  Finally, this stuff should - if anywhere - go into the section on genetics.  I think there is not enough consensus yet on how the genetics data is applied to racial classification.  Cavalli-Sforza's work on genetics certain belongs in an article on human genetics. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:47, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  organization