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Race absolutely does predict things but it predicts group properties accurately and individual's only probabilistically. That's bound to happen no matter how yo
by lopmotr 9y ago
Race absolutely does predict things but it predicts group properties accurately and individual's only probabilistically. That's bound to happen no matter how you categorize people. Every category has to have a different mean height, weight, etc. from the others because those are continuous variables. It turns out that for some useful properties, race is a better classification than random groups. Of course, it is a human invention, just like planets and fish, but it's one with predictive power, just like those other examples.
- aetherson 9y ago"Better classification than a random group" is a fairly low bar.
- lopmotr 9y agoI'm trying to counter the claim that race doesn't predict anything. More than nothing is something. How much? I haven't quantified it but neither has the OP.
- andrewprock 9y agoIt's not bad at predicting what race people will think someone is. Outside of that, it's of marginal utility at best. At worst, it's used for systematic oppression on a global scale.
- alanbernstein 9y agoIf the goal is to counter that oppression, how can it help to dispute or ignore the categories?