5 ms·

We better get this racism thing in check before we're literally dealing with different species of human (assuming that some groups of people remain isolated and

We better get this racism thing in check before we're literally dealing with different species of human (assuming that some groups of people remain isolated and we don't experience total global homogeneity in the future)

taneq 9y ago
What do you mean by "get in check"? It's pretty well accepted that we deal differently with different species. We'll need to decide what counts as ethically acceptable, but blind insistence that "all humans are created equal" isn't going to fly when we have undeniably different species of human.
- kakarot 9y ago
  I mean racism needs to be obliterated before the differences our governments and world religions trick us into bickering about become even greater, and we regress on fair and ethical treatment of all people in both the eyes of the law and the heart of the common man.
tomrod 9y ago
I thought racism was defined as: > prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. I completely agree that when looking at differences among population groups in a species, one should avoid normative statements such as "such and such makes this population superior," but is there harm caused by identifying differences in averages, medians, and variance in said defined population groups? In other words, if I am speaking about dogs, is it inappropriate to say chihuahuas are on average smaller than boxers and labs? Same species, but distinct populations. I think that is at the heart of it. To be "colorblind" to both the historical and modern claims of specific population superiority in one dimension or another is misguided-bad claims made in good faith should be addressed head on, in requests for citations, evidence, etc. Similarly, to identify where differences may occur seems to be a reasonable action so long as there is recognition to cultural or historical drivers too, as GP implicitly identifies with the optical adaptation mentioned (though, TBH, I have not read the study he or she proffers and thus have no insight to the claim).
- kakarot 9y ago
  On one hand, we have Darwin, who straight up wrote a book about why some races are superior [0], and on the other hand we have extremists who take offense even at assessments like "Men are on average stronger than women." For a modern-day Darwin, we have James Watson, the father of genetics, who has some interesting things to say [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Controversial_comments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Controversial_com... James Watson definitely has a masculine, biased perspective, but I mostly consider him to be somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Yet, his career has suffered greatly for his remarks dealing with race and genetics. Personally, I think it is patronizing if not downright deceitful to pretend differences don't exist between isolated demographics, but it will remain a touchy subject for a long time and most scientists will see what happened to Watson and pursue other areas of research.
  - EthanHeilman 9y ago
    >Personally, I think it is patronizing if not downright deceitful to pretend differences don't exist between isolated demographics, We don't have many isolated demographics (although there are some) both because pre-modern humans were capable of traveling over extremely long distances (i.e. isolation is unlikely) and because humans haven't been around for a particularly long time. Unlike many species humans are surprisingly genetically similar to each other[0]. Some of this also results from the fact that humans may have passed through a very small genetic bottleneck 100,000 years ago in which the human population was reduced to around 3,000-10,000 people other studies dispute this but arrive at similar genetic conclusions [1]. >but it will remain a touchy subject for a long time and most scientists will see what happened to Watson and pursue other areas of research. This isn't fair to scientists that legitimately engage in controversial topics. Watson is a bit of a crank, for example: >'In a lecture hall jammed with more than 200 Berkeley students and faculty members, Watson showed a slide of sad-faced model Kate Moss to support his contention that thin people are unhappy and therefore more ambitious. "Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them," Watson said."' [3] That isn't a scientific conclusion. Much of the anger against Watson is that he says stupid unscientific things to support his own biases and then hides behind his discovery. This follows a pattern, which occurs across the political spectrum, in which a scientist who makes an important discovery thinks that discovery means everything they say is correct. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation [1]: Population Bottlenecks and Pleistocene Human Evolution https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/1/2/975516 https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/1/2/975516 [2]: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Nobel-Winner-s-Theories-Raise-Uproar-in-Berkeley-3236584.php http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Nobel-Winner-s-Theorie...
jules 9y ago
How about this: we treat people as individuals regardless of what the scientific facts turn out to be.
- taneq 9y ago
  If you rephrased that as "we treat people as individuals regardless of the statistics about any classes those people happen to be members of", I'd agree.
  - stronglikedan 9y ago
    How about just, "We treat people as individuals regardless."

taneq 9y ago

What do you mean by "get in check"? It's pretty well accepted that we deal differently with different species. We'll need to decide what counts as ethically acceptable, but blind insistence that "all humans are created equal" isn't going to fly when we have undeniably different species of human.

kakarot 9y ago
I mean racism needs to be obliterated before the differences our governments and world religions trick us into bickering about become even greater, and we regress on fair and ethical treatment of all people in both the eyes of the law and the heart of the common man.

tomrod 9y ago

I thought racism was defined as: > prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. I completely agree that when looking at differences among population groups in a species, one should avoid normative statements such as "such and such makes this population superior," but is there harm caused by identifying differences in averages, medians, and variance in said defined population groups? In other words, if I am speaking about dogs, is it inappropriate to say chihuahuas are on average smaller than boxers and labs? Same species, but distinct populations. I think that is at the heart of it. To be "colorblind" to both the historical and modern claims of specific population superiority in one dimension or another is misguided-bad claims made in good faith should be addressed head on, in requests for citations, evidence, etc. Similarly, to identify where differences may occur seems to be a reasonable action so long as there is recognition to cultural or historical drivers too, as GP implicitly identifies with the optical adaptation mentioned (though, TBH, I have not read the study he or she proffers and thus have no insight to the claim).

kakarot 9y ago
On one hand, we have Darwin, who straight up wrote a book about why some races are superior [0], and on the other hand we have extremists who take offense even at assessments like "Men are on average stronger than women." For a modern-day Darwin, we have James Watson, the father of genetics, who has some interesting things to say [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Controversial_comments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Controversial_com... James Watson definitely has a masculine, biased perspective, but I mostly consider him to be somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Yet, his career has suffered greatly for his remarks dealing with race and genetics. Personally, I think it is patronizing if not downright deceitful to pretend differences don't exist between isolated demographics, but it will remain a touchy subject for a long time and most scientists will see what happened to Watson and pursue other areas of research.
- EthanHeilman 9y ago
  >Personally, I think it is patronizing if not downright deceitful to pretend differences don't exist between isolated demographics, We don't have many isolated demographics (although there are some) both because pre-modern humans were capable of traveling over extremely long distances (i.e. isolation is unlikely) and because humans haven't been around for a particularly long time. Unlike many species humans are surprisingly genetically similar to each other[0]. Some of this also results from the fact that humans may have passed through a very small genetic bottleneck 100,000 years ago in which the human population was reduced to around 3,000-10,000 people other studies dispute this but arrive at similar genetic conclusions [1]. >but it will remain a touchy subject for a long time and most scientists will see what happened to Watson and pursue other areas of research. This isn't fair to scientists that legitimately engage in controversial topics. Watson is a bit of a crank, for example: >'In a lecture hall jammed with more than 200 Berkeley students and faculty members, Watson showed a slide of sad-faced model Kate Moss to support his contention that thin people are unhappy and therefore more ambitious. "Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them," Watson said."' [3] That isn't a scientific conclusion. Much of the anger against Watson is that he says stupid unscientific things to support his own biases and then hides behind his discovery. This follows a pattern, which occurs across the political spectrum, in which a scientist who makes an important discovery thinks that discovery means everything they say is correct. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation [1]: Population Bottlenecks and Pleistocene Human Evolution https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/1/2/975516 https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/1/2/975516 [2]: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Nobel-Winner-s-Theories-Raise-Uproar-in-Berkeley-3236584.php http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Nobel-Winner-s-Theorie...

jules 9y ago

How about this: we treat people as individuals regardless of what the scientific facts turn out to be.

taneq 9y ago
If you rephrased that as "we treat people as individuals regardless of the statistics about any classes those people happen to be members of", I'd agree.
- stronglikedan 9y ago
  How about just, "We treat people as individuals regardless."