Holder: US is nation of cowards on racial matters

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I would have thought it was obvious given the reference you made to a "White History month" in a thread about race relations in the US.

[alienlovechild 75]

how many of the six genetically distinct ethnicities can you name? (no cheating/google, and i gave you two for free)

you have berbers, ethiopians, bushmen, bantu, ghanians, and pygmies, as 6 genetically different groups.

So how many genetically distinct ethnicities are there in the world? Where did you get this list anyway?

[Peikko 1,575]

Perhaps we all need to read this:

There has been an interesting dialectic between the notion of human races and the use of race as a general biological category. Historically, the concept of race was imported into biology, and not only the biology of the human species, from social practice. The consciousness that human beings come in distinct varieties led, in the history of biology, to the construction of “race” as a subgrouping within species. For a long time the category “race” was a standard taxonomic level. But the use of “race” in a general biological context then reinforced its application to humans. After all, lots of animal and plant species are divided into races, so why not ** sapiens? Yet the classification of animal and plant species into named races was at all times an ill-defined and idiosyncratic practice. There was no clear criterion of what constituted a race of animals or plants that could be applied over species in general. The growing realization in the middle of the twentieth century that most species had some genetic differentiation from local population to local population led finally to the abandonment in biology of any hope that a uniform criterion of race could be constructed. Yet biologists were loathe to abandon the idea of race entirely. In an attempt to hold on to the concept while make it objective and generalizable, Th. Dobzhansky, the leading biologist in the study of the genetics of natural populations, introduced the “geographical race,” which he defined as any population that differed genetically in any way from any other population of the species. But as genetics developed and it became possible to characterize the genetic differences between individuals and populations it became apparent, that every population of every species in fact differs genetically to some degree from every other population. Thus, every population is a separate “geographic race” and it was realized that nothing was added by the racial category. The consequence of this realization was the abandonment of “race” as a biological category during the last quarter of the twentieth century, an abandonment that spread into anthropology and human biology. However, that abandonment was never complete in the case of the human species. There has been a constant pressure from social and political practice and the coincidence of racial, cultural and social class divisions reinforcing the social reality of race, to maintain “race” as a human classification. If it were admitted that the category of “race” is a purely social construct, however, it would have a weakened legitimacy. Thus, there have been repeated attempts to reassert the objective biological reality of human racial categories despite the evidence to the contrary.

Interesting.

Link

[justashooter 430]

how many of the six genetically distinct ethnicities can you name? (no cheating/google, and i gave you two for free)

you have berbers, ethiopians, bushmen, bantu, ghanians, and pygmies, as 6 genetically different groups.

So how many genetically distinct ethnicities are there in the world? Where did you get this list anyway?

not sure how many in the world, but the six way divide of native africans was noted as early as the turn of the century by scientific observers, and confirmed as recently as the 1990's by geneticists. the value of the confirmation has to do with the study of genetic development and it's relation to medical research, as well as confirmation of linguistics research.

madame cleo's reference, at a glance, appears to be another "come on, can't we all just pretend we are the same" bunch of feel good #######. the truth is, we're all really very different. suppression of this fact, by censure of research or by policy, can only lead to the reduction of knowledge, thus the reduction of potential benefit.

[Peikko 1,575]

Perhaps you need to 'glance again'. It's rather interesting. I haven't read all the articles, but it's a lot better than the promotion of your 19th century mumbo jumbo

[justashooter 430]

Perhaps you need to 'glance again'. It's rather interesting. I haven't read all the articles, but it's a lot better than the promotion of your 19th century mumbo jumbo

refusal to acknowledge that each one of us is different, and that we may be seperated into groups that are inherently different, one from another, is a sign of emotional weakness. it is a sign of lack of confidence in self.

contrawise, it is the acknowledgement of this fact that allows a mature individual to capitalise upon the differences he sees. some may be useful for certain tasks, and others less so. thereby, we have the opportunity to choose one over another in any given circumstance.

for instance, it is well a known fact that recent olympic champions in intermediate distance running have repeatedly come from the same village in a certain country in east africa. if i was looking for a racer, that's where i'd go. the particular family that has spawned those champions has exactly the right genetic make-up for intermediate distance running.

Edited February 19, 2009 by justashooter

[Peikko 1,575]

Did you read it? I can't imagine you did, because that is NOT what is being argued at all.

[DeadPoolX 9]

Okay, so we've all come to the conclusion that neither of you have read it...

[Peikko 1,575]

There is not one part of anything I read that suggests we are all genetically the same...

[Peikko 1,575]

Okay, so we've all come to the conclusion that neither of you have read it...

I read one complete article, from which I posted an extract and another one. It's new information for me, I not a biologist and I haven't heard anywhere that there is this idea that there are no 'races' as such. There are however lots of genetic differences and these differences are as much from within one geographical location as they are without. I had no idea and I find it interesting.

[justashooter 430]

Okay, so we've all come to the conclusion that neither of you have read it...

these differences are as much from within one geographical location as they are without.

that is either a bunch of #######, or the result of individual migration.

didn't have time to read the link, just scanned the article.

[Peikko 1,575]

Confusions About Human Races

By R.C. Lewontin

Published on: Jun 07, 2006

R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University, has written a number of books and articles on evolution and human variation, including Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA and The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment

Summary:

There are four facts about human variation upon which there is universal agreement. First, the human species as a whole has immense genetic variation from individual to individual. Any two unrelated human beings differ by about 3 million distinct DNA variants.

Second, by far the largest amount of that variation, about 85%, is among individuals within local national or linguistic populations, within the French, within the Kikuyu, within the Japanese.

Third, a small number of genetic traits, such as skin color, hair form, nose shape (traits for which the genes have not actually been identified) and a relatively few proteins like the Rh blood type, vary together so that many populations with very dark skin color will also have dark tightly curled hair, broad noses and a high frequency of the Rh blood type R0.Those who, like Leroi, argue for the objective reality of racial divisions claim that when such covariation is taken into account, clear-cut racial divisions will appear and that these divisions will correspond largely to the classical division of the world into Whites, Blacks, Yellows, Reds and Browns. It is indeed possible to combine the information from covarying traits into weighted averages that take account of the traits' covariation (technically known as "principal components" of variation). When this has been done, however, the results have not borne out the claims for racial divisions. The geographical maps of principal component values constructed by Cavalli, Menozzi and Piazza in their famous The History and Geography of Human Genes show continuous variation over the whole world with no sharp boundaries and with no greater similarity occurring between Western and Eastern Europeans than between Europeans and Africans! Thus, the classically defined races do not appear from an unprejudiced description of human variation. Only the Australian Aborigines appear as a unique group.

The fourth and last fact about genetic differences between groups is that these differences are in the process of breaking down because of the very large amount of migration and intergroup mating that was always true episodically in the history of the human species but is now more widespread than ever. The result is that individuals identified by themselves or others as belonging to one “race,” based on the small number of visible characters used in classical race definitions, are likely to have ancestry that is a mixture of these groups, a fact that has considerable significance for the medical uses of race identification.

But then, he's an idiot so it can't be either interesting or true.

[Danno 1,228]

How would this concept relate to other species?

Is a Grizzly bear and a Brown bear really the same too?

[justashooter 430]

How would this concept relate to other species?

Is a Grizzly bear and a Brown bear really the same too?

there is considerable debate about that subject. the two can mate productively in a genetic sense, as has been demonstrated by rare example, so it would seem they are the same species. the lifestyles, chosen terrain, and social habits are so different, though, that any cross is purely coincidental, so that they are effectively different subgroups of the same species. but then, a griz and a black bear cannot mate productively...

[justashooter 430]

Confusions About Human Races

By R.C. Lewontin

Published on: Jun 07, 2006

R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University, has written a number of books and articles on evolution and human variation, including Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA and The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment

But then, he's an idiot so it can't be either interesting or true.

more ####### from another quack.

he finds a bunch of things that aren't germane to the question, brings them into the picture as though they are relevant, thereby obfuscates the truth, then comes to a convoluted conclusion that is wide of the mark. yeah, he prolly spent my tax dollars doing it, too.