Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 17

message: Was this move discussed?  Did I miss the discussion?  Not saying it's a bad thing necessarily, but isn't this a pretty major page to move without consultation? Guettarda 19:00, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It was also made without fixing broken redirects and in violation of our naming conventions. So I moved it back. --mav 20:48, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Race -> Human races 

message: The article currently has one sentence that bugs me when I try to think about where one would go to find a citation to bolster it. "Since the 1970s, there has been increased skepticism about "taxonomic" and "population" understandings of race."  I think that this sentence is wrong because nobody that I can think of has ever said anything to the effect that the right way to think about [races] is to equate them to populations. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that a population is not an understanding (or a close synonym) for a [race]. A Mendelian population is one comprised of individuals who mate freely with one-another. One finds such a population (and frequently it is convenient to take a geographically bounded region like Sumatra) and then studies a valid statistical sample of that population (or all of that population if you've got lots of money) to learn what it is possible to learn about the genetic composition of its members.  (C-S, p. 20ff) But maybe I'm wrong and somebody can help my feeble mind and save me from the sin of thinking for myself by pointing to a place in the literature of the field where somebody says something that starts out something like, "The way to understand what race really means is to learn what studies of populations tell us, which is....."
A case in point where population is used as I would expect it to be used appears in Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics by Jenny Reardon:
"Dobzhansky, would continue to find race useful (Provine, et al. 1981). 'Races,' he argued in his classic Genetics and the Origin of Species, 'may be defined as Mendelian populations of a species which differ in the frequencies of one or more genetic variants, gene alleles, or chromosomal structures.'" (emphasis added)  -- Patrick0Moran
Re:: I also think that race (as was definied by human biologists in the 20th century) and population is not the same thing. In human biology, race was definied as subspecies. Since humans are not dogs, horses or chimpanzees, the very concept of subspecies is wrong. Clines or populations are not exclusive or discrete and therefore are valid concepts for describing human biological diversity. What genomic tests have proved about human beings is that our biodiversity is patterned and not expressed by discrete types.  -- Orionix 14:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What I hope is an uncontroversial question 

message: Jalnet, it is insulting that you revert my edits with a note demanding I answer your arguments in the talk section.  I have always explained my edits in the talk section.  Instead of falsely claiming that I do not, why don't you take the time to read and, if possible, think about my explanations. Slrubenstein 18:19, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Slr, you can ramble and BS all you want.  I only want to comply with Wikipedia policy.  I find your assault on the truth quite disgusting, frankly. Jalnet2 18:25, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: The NPOV policy is a problem and i would say it prevents wikipedia from representing the most acceptable theories. Fact is, however, that the vast majority of scientists do not equate race with population. -- Orionix 14:59, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  You are acting in bad faith 

message: The text says:  Zoologists Edward O. Wilson and W. Brown then challenged the concept from the perspective of general animal systematics, and further rejected the claim that "subspecies" were equivalent to "races"" (Wilson and Brown 1953).
Should that be?: Zoologists Edward O. Wilson and W. Brown then challenged the concept from the perspective of general animal systematics, and further rejected the claim that "races" were equivalent to "subspecies" (Wilson and Brown 1953).
Not sure if that makes a difference. --Rikurzhen 23:02, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
Uh, well, maybe it doesn't make a difference, but I think your phrasing is better --I have to run can you make the change?  Slrubenstein 23:05, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wilson and Brown 

message: After the restructuring of the article, the total size is again > 32kb. The policy suggestion is to create sub-articles. However, we seem to have done so much integrating of material that the existing sub-articles race in biomedicine and (especially) validity of human races have mostly been covered in the main article. Any suggestions on what to do? --Rikurzhen 01:38, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
:In this instance, I strongly hesitate to create sub-pages (which policy used to oppose -- oh how the winds shift!).  Race is such a controversial topic, and I think many people have worked very hard to achieve NPOV, I fear that any spinning off would really wreck the article.  The only possibility I see would be an article that consists solely of the intro and the section on the lack of consensus; spin off every other section, and put in the links here instructing people that for an NPOV account of race they would have to read each sub-article.  I would find this acceptable -- but not ideal. Slrubenstein 17:00, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The 32K rule made sense at one point in recent history. It was not a limit set arbitrarily by anybody in the Wikipedia world. It reflected a fact of life in the computer world of the early years of Wikipedia -- older computers running older web browsers could not download, edit, and upload more than 32K at a time. I believe we were almost past that problem a couple years ago. (I was running Netscape 4.2, and it couldn't go over 32K.) If anybody is still using this older equipment they should upgrade to a more recent browser if possible. Failing that they could e-mail me or anybody else involved with this article whose e-mail address is available, and we could re-open the length question. P0M 03:54, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size limits and Sub-articles 

message: I have been looking over the whole article, which looks very good to me so far. Personally, I do not believe it to be reflecting one POV or another, but to be describing POVs and doing so in context of the available empirical information. While I was going through everything I noticed the following paragraph: P0M
:The most important element of this model for theories of race is that it allows a million years for the evolution of Homo sapiens around the world; this is more than enough time for the evolution of different races. Leiberman and Jackson (1995), however, have noted that this model makes several assumptions relevant to race: marked morphological contrasts exist between the center and edge of Middle Pleistocene Homo; many features emerge at the edge of the range before they develop at the center; these features exhibit great tenacity through time. Regional variations in these features can thus be taken as evidence of different races. (emphasis added)
Did the writer presumably intend "Homo sapiens" to be understood where just "Homo" is written, or should be expanded to "the genus Homo".  If memory serves, there has been considerable discussion about the route(s) of emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens from earlier members of the genus Homo and/or the hybridization of Homo sapiens sapiens populations with other subspecies of Homo sapiens. Australopithecus was still around in the early Pleistocene, around a couple of million years ago. Homo erectus developed next, and early Homo sapiens appeared between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. but the modern form of Homo sapiens did not emerge until around 75,000 years ago. The Pleistocene did not end until about 8,000 years ago, so "mid Pleistocene" would be around a million years ago, so are members of Homo erectus intended to be included in this discussion? P0M
:Genus Homo (which began evolving around 2.3-2.4 mya) Slrubenstein 17:58, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding of the article is "geographic."  The center is where the mutation/adaptation presumably started (because of the earliest appearance of fossil evidence, or the highest concentration of this trait). Slrubenstein 17:58, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, I think this is precisely Lieberman and Jackson's point, that the Wolpoff model is circulat.  Of course Wolpoff disagrees, but you'd have to ask him yourself why. Slrubenstein 17:58, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question of consistency 

message: Near the bottom of the article it says:
:The clash between science and politics is evident in debates over human intelligence, and biomedicine.
Is the intention to assert that science always has the right take on issues and politics always has the wrong take on issues? P0M 07:55, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not see how you get that from the sentence.  I think the intention (by the way, I don't think I wrote it) is to observe that science and politics often clash.  If there is any problem with this statement, it is that it doesn't say that many times politics and science do not at all clash (it would violate NPOV to say that in some cases, like Nazis, this is bad, and in other cases it is good). Slrubenstein 18:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question of neutrality of point of view 

message: this author  presents three theories on race. My concern about "merely" is motivated by the desire that we get them straght if they are really positions people hold: --Rikurzhen 01:44, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
:Among race theorists, the view that race is a social construction is widespread. While the term ‘social construction’ is sometimes intended to mean merely that race does not (as once believed) constitute a robust, biological natural kind, it often labels the stronger position that race is real, but not a biological kind. For example, Charles Mills (1998) writes that, “the task of those working on race is to put race in quotes, ‘race,’ while still insisting that nevertheless, it exists (and moves people).”(xiv, italics his). It is to “make a plausible social ontology neither essentialist, innate, nor transhistorical, but real enough for all that” (xiv). Racial constructionism, thus conceived, is a metaphysical position that contrasts both with the traditional view race is an important biological kind (racial naturalism) and with the more recent claim that race does not exist (racial skepticism).
Okay, I see where you are getting this.  Alas, the paper you are relying on isn't very good.  In describing the position "races do not exist," the author slips from the descriptive (races do not exist) immediately to the pescriptive (races should not be real).  Why?  My guess is that he couldn't find a single source for the claim "races do not exist.  Why?  Because this author has invented this position.  First, "races do not exist" is not a social-constructivist claim at all, since social construcion is a way of talking about things that do exist.  Second, all claims (that I know of) that races aren't real mean "in the biological taxanomic essentialist" sense.  They do not mean "in the social political or economic sense."  Personally, this guy seems like a mediocre philosopher.  Social construction is definitely not a metaphysical claim. Slrubenstein 15:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But what, exactly, does it mean for race to be socially constructed? In recent years, a variety of philosophers including Robert Gooding-Williams (1998), Mills, Adrian Piper (1992), Michael Root (2000), and Iris Marion Young (1989) have turned their attention to this metaphysical question.[3] In what follows, I argue that despite the progress these accounts represent, they nonetheless fail to arrive at an adequate constructionist account of race.
More later, if... P0M 08:43, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Alternatively, we could say that races did not exist in the past, but now they do as some sort of social construction.
I think that is like saying that the Mugwump Group did not exist until somebody created the rules for assigning people to the group called "mugwumps". Now we know whom to put in the mugwump category, and so having done so with X number of individuals, then when an independent observer examines the same population we examined he will find that the category "mugwump" actually contains X members. He concludes that the Mugwump Group is real.... Balderdash. What he determines is that the Mugwump Group is not an empty set.  (We could easily make an empty set by listing the same characteristics as those created for the mugwumps and then add one more requirement, e.g., that the oxygen-carrying component of their blood should be a copper compound, not an iron compound.  Vulcans aside, we should find no members of that set. Do we say that the "Mugwump Plus Group" does not exist? It's a question of language, and a question of how to use language correctly and productively.)  
Short answer:  Sets do not exist nor do they not exist.  Set definitions exist, but sets either are empty or have at least one member. P0M 09:51, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  three theories - on social construction 

message: Obvious Jalnet2 refuses compromise.  After perhaps a week or two of arguing over the introduction, we reached a version that includes most of the material he considered most important (the introduction includes the "fuzzy set" view, and the claim that those who reject race are doing so for political and not scientific purposes).  Nevertheless, he keeps inserting more arguments for race.
Jalnet2, the introduction is not the place for any arguments.  It is the place to set out as simply as possible the various views that will be discussed in the body of the article.  Moreover, this is not "Crossfire;" it is a caracature of science to think that scientists sit around saying "you are wrong" "no you are wrong."  If you have information from a credible scientific source presenting important data or analysis, there is surely a place within the body of the article in which you can add that material.  The article already represents diverse views; what we need now is to flesh out each view with the most current science possible.  Help us -- or go away.  But don't keep wasting our time because as long as you try to use the introductory paragraphs as a place to argue, I will revert you. Slrubenstein 17:10, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jalnet2