2 ms·

Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct; mostly all human genetic characteristics are blurry and overlapping, even sex! Edit: But that

by tomp 11y ago

Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct; mostly all human genetic characteristics are blurry and overlapping, even sex! Edit: But that doesn't mean that the concept itself isn't useful.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct Then its very odd to suggest that those who disagree with the claim that "there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races" are "painfully stupid"; that the concept and perception of race has a loose correlation to real genetic variation, and that descriptors of race may occasionally have use (even in a biological context), is a very different thing than a "clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races".
- tomp 11y ago
  Equally odd as suggesting that there are obviously distinct sexes and that sex is a biological fact... i.e. not odd at all. Just because not all people are either men or women, doesn't mean that the categories are nonsensical or useless. Same goes for race.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Look, make up your mind, is it: > in my view there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races Or is it: > Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct [...] But that doesn't mean that the concept itself isn't useful Because you started with the first, retreated to the second in the face of evidence that the first wasn't true, and then have come around to this weird position where you seem to say that the second justifies the first (despite the fact that they directly contradict each other.)
    - tomp 11y ago
      Sorry if I wasn't clear. There are men. There are women. These people belong to different, distinct sexes. There are people who are both/neither/mixed. There are people who are black. There are people who are white. There are people who are Asian. These people belong to different, distinct races. There are also people who are of mixed race. Of course, different people and cultures are going to perceive races and sexes differently... For example, Obama is black in the US but would probably be white in Kenya. Similarly, it used to be the case that doctors would operate on mixed-sex children and make them single-sex (usually female), but now they often leave them mixed-sex. Regardless, there appears to be practically no confusion about the non-ambiguous single-sex and single-race people.
      - dalke 11y ago
        The biology you describe for race identification is based on phenotypes, interpreted through culture. It has no deeper genetic basis. So yes, the popular views of race are based in biology, as they have for hundreds of years. But the choice for what constitutes a race is arbitrary. It could been on hair type, or eye color, or height, or relative length of the fingers, or blood type or any of many other factors. If you choose a different set of factors, you end up with different races. Is there an Irish Race, as in https://archive.org/details/storyofirishrace00macmrich https://archive.org/details/storyofirishrace00macmrich ? And of course the Aryan race - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race - has long been the favorite of scientific racism. In US history, look at Bhagat Singh Thind. His US citizenship was challenge in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) because, while pure Aryan, and Caucasian, he wasn't white. The laws at the time said only "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" could become United States citizens by naturalization. In the Supreme Court decision which stripped Thind of his citizenship (quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_... ; emphasis mine): > Associate Justice George Sutherland said that authorities on the subject of race were in disagreement over which people were included in the scientific definition of the Caucasian race, so Sutherland instead chose to rely on the common understanding of race rather than the scientific understanding of race.[4] Sutherland found that, while Thind may claim to have "purity of Aryan blood" due to being "born in Village Taragarh Talawa near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab" and having "high caste" status, he was not Caucasian in the "common understanding", so he could not be included in the "statutory category as white persons".[6] The Court reiterated its holding in [Ozawa v. United States],[citation needed] explaining that the words "free white person" in the naturalization act were "synonymous with the word ‘Caucasian’ only as that word is popularly understood," pointing out that the statutory language was to be interpreted as "words of common speech and not of scientific origin, . . . written in the common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men." So while it's true that biological factors have long been used to assign race, the choice of which factors to use as you yourself say is socially determined. Hence race is socially constructed. There's no useful genetic basis for saying there is a "black" race, other than as an expression of a phenotype. The diversity of people with black skin is entirely too large for that characterization to be useful. Stop using definitions of race that were discredited decades ago.

by tomp 11y ago

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct Then its very odd to suggest that those who disagree with the claim that "there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races" are "painfully stupid"; that the concept and perception of race has a loose correlation to real genetic variation, and that descriptors of race may occasionally have use (even in a biological context), is a very different thing than a "clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races".

tomp 11y ago
Equally odd as suggesting that there are obviously distinct sexes and that sex is a biological fact... i.e. not odd at all. Just because not all people are either men or women, doesn't mean that the categories are nonsensical or useless. Same goes for race.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Look, make up your mind, is it: > in my view there is a clearly obvious biological fact that there are distinct races Or is it: > Oh, I'm definitely not saying that different races are distinct [...] But that doesn't mean that the concept itself isn't useful Because you started with the first, retreated to the second in the face of evidence that the first wasn't true, and then have come around to this weird position where you seem to say that the second justifies the first (despite the fact that they directly contradict each other.)
  - tomp 11y ago
    Sorry if I wasn't clear. There are men. There are women. These people belong to different, distinct sexes. There are people who are both/neither/mixed. There are people who are black. There are people who are white. There are people who are Asian. These people belong to different, distinct races. There are also people who are of mixed race. Of course, different people and cultures are going to perceive races and sexes differently... For example, Obama is black in the US but would probably be white in Kenya. Similarly, it used to be the case that doctors would operate on mixed-sex children and make them single-sex (usually female), but now they often leave them mixed-sex. Regardless, there appears to be practically no confusion about the non-ambiguous single-sex and single-race people.
    - dalke 11y ago
      The biology you describe for race identification is based on phenotypes, interpreted through culture. It has no deeper genetic basis. So yes, the popular views of race are based in biology, as they have for hundreds of years. But the choice for what constitutes a race is arbitrary. It could been on hair type, or eye color, or height, or relative length of the fingers, or blood type or any of many other factors. If you choose a different set of factors, you end up with different races. Is there an Irish Race, as in https://archive.org/details/storyofirishrace00macmrich https://archive.org/details/storyofirishrace00macmrich ? And of course the Aryan race - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race - has long been the favorite of scientific racism. In US history, look at Bhagat Singh Thind. His US citizenship was challenge in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) because, while pure Aryan, and Caucasian, he wasn't white. The laws at the time said only "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" could become United States citizens by naturalization. In the Supreme Court decision which stripped Thind of his citizenship (quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_... ; emphasis mine): > Associate Justice George Sutherland said that authorities on the subject of race were in disagreement over which people were included in the scientific definition of the Caucasian race, so Sutherland instead chose to rely on the common understanding of race rather than the scientific understanding of race.[4] Sutherland found that, while Thind may claim to have "purity of Aryan blood" due to being "born in Village Taragarh Talawa near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab" and having "high caste" status, he was not Caucasian in the "common understanding", so he could not be included in the "statutory category as white persons".[6] The Court reiterated its holding in [Ozawa v. United States],[citation needed] explaining that the words "free white person" in the naturalization act were "synonymous with the word ‘Caucasian’ only as that word is popularly understood," pointing out that the statutory language was to be interpreted as "words of common speech and not of scientific origin, . . . written in the common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men." So while it's true that biological factors have long been used to assign race, the choice of which factors to use as you yourself say is socially determined. Hence race is socially constructed. There's no useful genetic basis for saying there is a "black" race, other than as an expression of a phenotype. The diversity of people with black skin is entirely too large for that characterization to be useful. Stop using definitions of race that were discredited decades ago.