6 ms·

Genes for Skin Color Rebut Dated Notions of Race, Researchers Say

24 points by digital55 9y ago

darawk 9y ago
This article is somehow trying to say that race doesn't exist because we found the genes for skin color? What?
- astrodust 9y ago
  They're saying that skin color is what people think is a reliable indicator of race, but in fact, genetically speaking, it's a total mess and nothing is clear at all.
  - kemerover 9y ago
    But it is a reliable indicator of race. Article even says it: >The dark-skinned people of southern India, Australia and New Guinea, for example, did not independently evolve their color simply because evolution favored it. >They inherited the ancestral dark variants Dr. Tishkoff’s team found in Africans. “They had to be introduced from an African population,” said Dr. Tishkoff.
    - astrodust 9y ago
      There's multiple genetic factors that dictate skin tone, and the overlap between these is pretty chaotic. They even admit there's some aspects to skin tone that are still completely a mystery, there's no genetic marker(s) they can point to as the cause.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  i think the article is claiming that the skin-color-centric definition of race doesn't make sense any more: “If you ask somebody on the street, ‘What are the main differences between races?,’ they’re going to say skin color,” said Sarah A. Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania. i suppose that Tishkoff is right, but to be a bit more rigorous about it, i would be curious to see the sociological research that demonstrates that "somebody on the street" actually thinks that "the main differences between races" are "skin color." maybe people don't think that. not really sure either way.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I think you're answering a question the article doesn't pose. Tishkoff didn't claim to have refuted the concept of races, but rather just the notion that they were directly tied to skin color.
    - darawk 9y ago
      > The research “dispels a biological concept of race,” Dr. Tishkoff said.
      - pizza 9y ago
        I think there's two ways to read this: "dispels a biological concept of race" - as in, it dispels one concept or "dispels a biological concept of [human] race [because the genetics variants determining pigment predate humanity, therefore either human delineation of race predates humans, or is incoherent]"
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - HillaryBriss 9y ago
      huh? i'm not trying to start an argument but i think i was saying pretty much the same thing you're saying. i think we actually agree on this.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
kemerover 9y ago
I don't really understand the point of the article. How does this research “dispels a biological concept of race”? >“If you ask somebody on the street, ‘What are the main differences between races?,’ they’re going to say skin color,” said Sarah A. Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania. Yep, that's true. Skin color is the most prominent and easily identifiable feature. But every human can easily identify black/white/Asian based on facial features or voice. Forensic anthropologists can identify a race based on skull, they can even make a pretty good prediction based solely on a jaw. The idea that race is just a skin color is not a dated notion of race, it is a modern interpretation that is pushed by leftists. If racists believed that race is just a skin color, why would they be racists? Now, if we could dispel the idea that race is just a skin color and the idea that some races are inferior, if we could stop treating it as a dichotomy, that would be good.
- astrodust 9y ago
  Uh, voice? That seems dubious. Apart from vernacular or speaking styles that are generally racial in nature, there's really nothing there. > But every human can easily identify black/white/Asian... It's not the obvious cases that matter, but the borderline ones. Is that person Japanese or maybe Inuit? > If racists believed that race is just a skin color, why would they be racists? Yes. If we were all precisely the same skin color they'd find other ways to put people down. Your "Jewish" nose. Your "nappy" hair. Color's just the tip of the ice-berg. Some people are perceived as being inferior because that's what some elements in society need them to be in order to advance their own social standing.
  - kemerover 9y ago
    >Uh, voice? That seems dubious. Apart from vernacular or speaking styles that are generally racial in nature, there's really nothing there. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17342877 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17342877 >It's not the obvious cases that matter, but the borderline ones. Is that person Japanese or maybe Inuit? First of all, I don't think it is appropriate to classify "Japanese" or "Inuit" as races. Race is a more general concept. Anyway, Japanese and Inuit are easy to distinguish. Middle Eastern and European are better examples. If you take one European person and one Middle Eastern person it would be hard to differentiate them, if you take two groups of one hundred people it would be easy.

24 points by digital55 9y ago

darawk 9y ago

This article is somehow trying to say that race doesn't exist because we found the genes for skin color? What?

astrodust 9y ago
They're saying that skin color is what people think is a reliable indicator of race, but in fact, genetically speaking, it's a total mess and nothing is clear at all.
- kemerover 9y ago
  But it is a reliable indicator of race. Article even says it: >The dark-skinned people of southern India, Australia and New Guinea, for example, did not independently evolve their color simply because evolution favored it. >They inherited the ancestral dark variants Dr. Tishkoff’s team found in Africans. “They had to be introduced from an African population,” said Dr. Tishkoff.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    There's multiple genetic factors that dictate skin tone, and the overlap between these is pretty chaotic. They even admit there's some aspects to skin tone that are still completely a mystery, there's no genetic marker(s) they can point to as the cause.
HillaryBriss 9y ago
i think the article is claiming that the skin-color-centric definition of race doesn't make sense any more: “If you ask somebody on the street, ‘What are the main differences between races?,’ they’re going to say skin color,” said Sarah A. Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania. i suppose that Tishkoff is right, but to be a bit more rigorous about it, i would be curious to see the sociological research that demonstrates that "somebody on the street" actually thinks that "the main differences between races" are "skin color." maybe people don't think that. not really sure either way.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I think you're answering a question the article doesn't pose. Tishkoff didn't claim to have refuted the concept of races, but rather just the notion that they were directly tied to skin color.
  - darawk 9y ago
    > The research “dispels a biological concept of race,” Dr. Tishkoff said.
    - pizza 9y ago
      I think there's two ways to read this: "dispels a biological concept of race" - as in, it dispels one concept or "dispels a biological concept of [human] race [because the genetics variants determining pigment predate humanity, therefore either human delineation of race predates humans, or is incoherent]"
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - HillaryBriss 9y ago
    huh? i'm not trying to start an argument but i think i was saying pretty much the same thing you're saying. i think we actually agree on this.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

kemerover 9y ago

I don't really understand the point of the article. How does this research “dispels a biological concept of race”? >“If you ask somebody on the street, ‘What are the main differences between races?,’ they’re going to say skin color,” said Sarah A. Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania. Yep, that's true. Skin color is the most prominent and easily identifiable feature. But every human can easily identify black/white/Asian based on facial features or voice. Forensic anthropologists can identify a race based on skull, they can even make a pretty good prediction based solely on a jaw. The idea that race is just a skin color is not a dated notion of race, it is a modern interpretation that is pushed by leftists. If racists believed that race is just a skin color, why would they be racists? Now, if we could dispel the idea that race is just a skin color and the idea that some races are inferior, if we could stop treating it as a dichotomy, that would be good.

astrodust 9y ago
Uh, voice? That seems dubious. Apart from vernacular or speaking styles that are generally racial in nature, there's really nothing there. > But every human can easily identify black/white/Asian... It's not the obvious cases that matter, but the borderline ones. Is that person Japanese or maybe Inuit? > If racists believed that race is just a skin color, why would they be racists? Yes. If we were all precisely the same skin color they'd find other ways to put people down. Your "Jewish" nose. Your "nappy" hair. Color's just the tip of the ice-berg. Some people are perceived as being inferior because that's what some elements in society need them to be in order to advance their own social standing.
- kemerover 9y ago
  >Uh, voice? That seems dubious. Apart from vernacular or speaking styles that are generally racial in nature, there's really nothing there. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17342877 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17342877 >It's not the obvious cases that matter, but the borderline ones. Is that person Japanese or maybe Inuit? First of all, I don't think it is appropriate to classify "Japanese" or "Inuit" as races. Race is a more general concept. Anyway, Japanese and Inuit are easy to distinguish. Middle Eastern and European are better examples. If you take one European person and one Middle Eastern person it would be hard to differentiate them, if you take two groups of one hundred people it would be easy.