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> We can say that Chinese are more likely to be shorter than africans. whats a chinese? whats an african? and what is it about those categories that makes it n

> We can say that Chinese are more likely to be shorter than africans. whats a chinese? whats an african? and what is it about those categories that makes it necessary for you to speak in probabilities and not certainties? if those categories accurately described features of reality, and were not mere artifacts that stem from your worldview, you would be able to rigorously tell me a relationship between gene(s) and features. > Race is defined by a combination of genetics in the form of phenotypes and culture. > for how you test for a race the answer is that's pretty easy, 99% of the time you can just ask someone and they will tell you. exactly, its a made up category, i.e. not a real thing. > We can prove this through cluster analysis, where you take a sample set of people and first ask them what race they are from a set number of selections. They then can read SNPs from each of the participants and hand that to a computer without the self reported data the people provided. you can do the same thing for things like "hippie", "biker", "nerd" etc. it doesn't make those categories leave the intersubjective realm.

smallnamespace 9y ago
> necessary for you to speak in probabilities and not certainties? You're replying to a person who is specifically referencing group stats and not in a deterministic way. Here's one extreme statement: - There is no such thing as race, in that E(X | race) = E(X) for all X that we care about Here's another extreme statement: - Race biologically determines your fate, e.g. E(X | race + C) = E(X | race) for any 'other information' C Both statements as wrong. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between. Even if you don't think that 'race' is the most salient metric, it doesn't help that our culture sometimes seems to willfully conflate culture, religion, ethnicity, and race in the most uncharitable possible way. Eg. if you say something bad about Islam itself as a religion, one often finds themselves accused of implicit racism—and this is accusation is determined by seeing that one group of people of a certain 'race' seems to follow that religion more, so if you criticize a religion, you must be intending to attack that group of people.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
> do the same thing for things like "hippie", "biker", "nerd" while race is not the correct term to use there, breeding two nerds or two biker isn't likely to produce another nerd or biker, while the result of breeding two people of a common ancestry has a likely outcome. > exactly, its a made up category, i.e. not a real thing. race is a made up category, but you can't just hand wave all of it: > what is it about those categories that makes it necessary for you to speak in probabilities [..] you would be able to rigorously tell me a relationship between gene(s) and features. only because something hasn't been explored in its entirety doesn't make it less convincing of an argument. beside, genetic is rooted in statistics, because of recessive/dominant expressions of traits, so you have to talk in probabilities.
- tensor_rank_0 9y ago
  > breeding two nerds or two biker isn't likely to produce another nerd or biker, while the result of breeding two people of a common ancestry has a likely outcome. this is preposterous on many levels. 1. the outcome of any breeding project can be described in terms of species, individuals, and traits. race is an unnecessary and poorly defined category. 2. the offspring of nerds and bikers have a non-trivial likelihood of turning out to be nerds and bikers. 3. the person I replied to wants culture to be a component of race. > you can't just hand wave all of it: It's well within the bounds of proper discourse for me to be a racial noncognitivist because I believe the concept to be incoherent, and protest its usage by requiring my interlocutor to tell me what exactly they mean by this particular nonsense term. >beside, genetic is rooted in statistics, because of recessive/dominant expressions of traits, so you have to talk in probabilities. look, theres a value to studying the interaction of genes and their expression in an organism. there isn't value in delineating a gene pool into "races" because the category is net harmful to understanding.
deleted 9y ago
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shard972 9y ago
> whats a chinese? whats an african? and what is it about those categories that makes it necessary for you to speak in probabilities and not certainties? I already answered that race is generally defined as a combination of genetics and culture. I don't see what your argument is, some kind of no true scotsman where because the definition of race isn't some set in stone definition that you can perfect attain with a genetic test it's completely useless as a grouping mechanic without something else to replace it. The reason i'm speaking in probabilities is because that is what the facts are, that we have more variance within races than between. Which is to say there is no reason you can't have an african who is the shortest person in the world, or a chinese man could be the tallest just because the mean bears out the opposite. > if those categories accurately described features of reality, and were not mere artifacts that stem from your worldview, you would be able to rigorously tell me a relationship between gene(s) and features. You are demanding a standard of evidence that is beyond reason, do you not believe in evolution because there are gaps in the fossil knowledge? There is no reason you require to know every specific gene that influences height to determine that africans are genetically predisposed to be taller. Not only can we deduce that genes play a predictive role in attributes like height and IQ through twin studies, but we have already begun to find genes that can predict physical attributes like height. > exactly, its a made up category, i.e. not a real thing. Category theory is made up, does that make it not real? Something that has no value whatsoever? I really don't understand the argument, because you seem to believe race is subjective (even though we can prove it isn't based on what i previously said regarding cluster analysis) to the point it has 0 predictive value. Is that your argument? > you can do the same thing for things like "hippie", "biker", "nerd" etc. it doesn't make those categories leave the intersubjective realm. And guess what, we can make predictions based on this knowledge. We can say that a self proclaimed hippie is more likely to smoke weed than a self proclaimed Muslim or Christian. Do you believe we cannot do this? Because if you believe we can do this with subjective social groups, I would say again based on the cluster analysis work i linked to previously, we can say that what people see as race almost perfectly corresponds to what a computer would sort them into based on purely genetics. Race isn't some wavy concept where you have asians thinking of themselves as africans, or japanese thinking they are chinese. Sure you can point to exceptions but they are just that, not even 1% of the people in these studies when using more than just a dozen SNPs

smallnamespace 9y ago

> necessary for you to speak in probabilities and not certainties? You're replying to a person who is specifically referencing group stats and not in a deterministic way. Here's one extreme statement: - There is no such thing as race, in that E(X | race) = E(X) for all X that we care about Here's another extreme statement: - Race biologically determines your fate, e.g. E(X | race + C) = E(X | race) for any 'other information' C Both statements as wrong. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between. Even if you don't think that 'race' is the most salient metric, it doesn't help that our culture sometimes seems to willfully conflate culture, religion, ethnicity, and race in the most uncharitable possible way. Eg. if you say something bad about Islam itself as a religion, one often finds themselves accused of implicit racism—and this is accusation is determined by seeing that one group of people of a certain 'race' seems to follow that religion more, so if you criticize a religion, you must be intending to attack that group of people.

LoSboccacc 9y ago

> do the same thing for things like "hippie", "biker", "nerd" while race is not the correct term to use there, breeding two nerds or two biker isn't likely to produce another nerd or biker, while the result of breeding two people of a common ancestry has a likely outcome. > exactly, its a made up category, i.e. not a real thing. race is a made up category, but you can't just hand wave all of it: > what is it about those categories that makes it necessary for you to speak in probabilities [..] you would be able to rigorously tell me a relationship between gene(s) and features. only because something hasn't been explored in its entirety doesn't make it less convincing of an argument. beside, genetic is rooted in statistics, because of recessive/dominant expressions of traits, so you have to talk in probabilities.

tensor_rank_0 9y ago
> breeding two nerds or two biker isn't likely to produce another nerd or biker, while the result of breeding two people of a common ancestry has a likely outcome. this is preposterous on many levels. 1. the outcome of any breeding project can be described in terms of species, individuals, and traits. race is an unnecessary and poorly defined category. 2. the offspring of nerds and bikers have a non-trivial likelihood of turning out to be nerds and bikers. 3. the person I replied to wants culture to be a component of race. > you can't just hand wave all of it: It's well within the bounds of proper discourse for me to be a racial noncognitivist because I believe the concept to be incoherent, and protest its usage by requiring my interlocutor to tell me what exactly they mean by this particular nonsense term. >beside, genetic is rooted in statistics, because of recessive/dominant expressions of traits, so you have to talk in probabilities. look, theres a value to studying the interaction of genes and their expression in an organism. there isn't value in delineating a gene pool into "races" because the category is net harmful to understanding.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

shard972 9y ago

> whats a chinese? whats an african? and what is it about those categories that makes it necessary for you to speak in probabilities and not certainties? I already answered that race is generally defined as a combination of genetics and culture. I don't see what your argument is, some kind of no true scotsman where because the definition of race isn't some set in stone definition that you can perfect attain with a genetic test it's completely useless as a grouping mechanic without something else to replace it. The reason i'm speaking in probabilities is because that is what the facts are, that we have more variance within races than between. Which is to say there is no reason you can't have an african who is the shortest person in the world, or a chinese man could be the tallest just because the mean bears out the opposite. > if those categories accurately described features of reality, and were not mere artifacts that stem from your worldview, you would be able to rigorously tell me a relationship between gene(s) and features. You are demanding a standard of evidence that is beyond reason, do you not believe in evolution because there are gaps in the fossil knowledge? There is no reason you require to know every specific gene that influences height to determine that africans are genetically predisposed to be taller. Not only can we deduce that genes play a predictive role in attributes like height and IQ through twin studies, but we have already begun to find genes that can predict physical attributes like height. > exactly, its a made up category, i.e. not a real thing. Category theory is made up, does that make it not real? Something that has no value whatsoever? I really don't understand the argument, because you seem to believe race is subjective (even though we can prove it isn't based on what i previously said regarding cluster analysis) to the point it has 0 predictive value. Is that your argument? > you can do the same thing for things like "hippie", "biker", "nerd" etc. it doesn't make those categories leave the intersubjective realm. And guess what, we can make predictions based on this knowledge. We can say that a self proclaimed hippie is more likely to smoke weed than a self proclaimed Muslim or Christian. Do you believe we cannot do this? Because if you believe we can do this with subjective social groups, I would say again based on the cluster analysis work i linked to previously, we can say that what people see as race almost perfectly corresponds to what a computer would sort them into based on purely genetics. Race isn't some wavy concept where you have asians thinking of themselves as africans, or japanese thinking they are chinese. Sure you can point to exceptions but they are just that, not even 1% of the people in these studies when using more than just a dozen SNPs