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What else could it possibly be determined by? Perhaps we're talking about different definitions of the word "race". Are you saying that the phenotypic differen

What else could it possibly be determined by? Perhaps we're talking about different definitions of the word "race". Are you saying that the phenotypic differences between an Inuit and an African Pygmy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Pygmies#Genetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Pygmies#Genetics) are not determined by those individuals' DNA?

foldr 7y ago
>What else could it possibly be determined by? Appearance and cultural characteristics (e.g. language, community, location). The connection to genetics is very loose. In the USA for example, someone who's considered "black" might have just as much "white" ancestry as "black" ancestry.
- vcavallo 7y ago
  we are not talking about the same meaning of “race” then. you’re talking almost entirely about socio-cultural elements (here. not earlier about Latinos, you should notice). see my above comment about Inuits and Pygmies and notice how your tangent here doesn’t relate to it. of course DNA explains that difference - nothing else can. your divergence into culture is a bit disingenuous - especially since you were talking about Alzheimer’s and Latinos earlier, a disease which has nothing to do with culture...
  - foldr 7y ago
    Erm, the point about Latinos is that they're a group almost entirely defined by socio-cultural elements. Latinos are not a random sample of the entire population, so there is no reason to expect them to have the same distribution of genes as the entire population. But obviously, there is no genetic criterion for being Latino. There are, e.g. Latinos with white European ancestry and Latinos with Mayan ancestry. Brazil is a massively diverse country, and yet pretty much all Brazilians are (by US standards) "Latino". There is no respectable scientific or genetic definition of "race". Race is a socio-cultural construct. Naturally, there are rough correlations between genes and "race" in some instances. Lots of characteristics are roughly correlated. But by that loose standard, ”sofware engineer" would be a genetically defined category too.
    - vcavallo 7y ago
      you say “obviously” there is no genetic criterion for being Latino... there’s nothing obvious about that at all. you say here yourself they aren’t a random sample of the population - then what are they? and whatever it is that ties these individuals together, I’d wager there’s a genetic history overlapping in those tying elements. Or else you’d find much more ancestral diversity within “Latinos” (or “Asians”, or “Blacks” or “Italians”. there’s a reason these partially-cultural-mostly-ancestral groups _tend_ to have similar ancestry. tend.) just one example of the genetic angle of Latino-ness: https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/latino-ancestry/ https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/latino-ancestry/ if you go far enough back, we’re all african, and if you go far enough forward, we’re all exactly X% everything after enough gene-mingling. but we’re not at that X% mix and we’re also not all african. we’re in an in-between stage where the cultural groups that are typically called “races” in this in-between moment on average tend to share ancestry and as a result, on average tend to be genetically similar. why are you making this sound like it’s a wild claim? I think of it as similar to taxonomy of species - there’s no line during evolution where something stops being one species and starts being another. just like there’s no hard line between races. but a sparrow is clearly not a giraffe. that’s a useful comment about their genetic differences that may or may not give you information related to the correlations of those differences. > “Naturally there are rough correlations between genes and ‘race’ in some instances” you don’t seem comfortable letting this fact lie without caveating the hell out of it, which makes your position seem ideologically motivated - which makes me question how much truth you’re willing to accept without obfuscating.
      - foldr 7y ago
        A Latino could have entirely white European ancestry or entirely indigenous ancestry (and those are far from the only possibilities). I think you just don't know what a Latino is (?) The blog post you link to might help you out here: "Latinos — people who trace their ancestry to the ethnically diverse regions of Latin America." "So for example, on average, people of Mexico have about 4 percent African ancestry, while for the average Puerto Rican the percentage is much higher." Comparing racial differences in humans to species differences is wildly inaccurate biologically, and a racist trope. I think it's clear who has the agenda here.

foldr 7y ago

>What else could it possibly be determined by? Appearance and cultural characteristics (e.g. language, community, location). The connection to genetics is very loose. In the USA for example, someone who's considered "black" might have just as much "white" ancestry as "black" ancestry.

vcavallo 7y ago
we are not talking about the same meaning of “race” then. you’re talking almost entirely about socio-cultural elements (here. not earlier about Latinos, you should notice). see my above comment about Inuits and Pygmies and notice how your tangent here doesn’t relate to it. of course DNA explains that difference - nothing else can. your divergence into culture is a bit disingenuous - especially since you were talking about Alzheimer’s and Latinos earlier, a disease which has nothing to do with culture...
- foldr 7y ago
  Erm, the point about Latinos is that they're a group almost entirely defined by socio-cultural elements. Latinos are not a random sample of the entire population, so there is no reason to expect them to have the same distribution of genes as the entire population. But obviously, there is no genetic criterion for being Latino. There are, e.g. Latinos with white European ancestry and Latinos with Mayan ancestry. Brazil is a massively diverse country, and yet pretty much all Brazilians are (by US standards) "Latino". There is no respectable scientific or genetic definition of "race". Race is a socio-cultural construct. Naturally, there are rough correlations between genes and "race" in some instances. Lots of characteristics are roughly correlated. But by that loose standard, ”sofware engineer" would be a genetically defined category too.
  - vcavallo 7y ago
    you say “obviously” there is no genetic criterion for being Latino... there’s nothing obvious about that at all. you say here yourself they aren’t a random sample of the population - then what are they? and whatever it is that ties these individuals together, I’d wager there’s a genetic history overlapping in those tying elements. Or else you’d find much more ancestral diversity within “Latinos” (or “Asians”, or “Blacks” or “Italians”. there’s a reason these partially-cultural-mostly-ancestral groups _tend_ to have similar ancestry. tend.) just one example of the genetic angle of Latino-ness: https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/latino-ancestry/ https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/latino-ancestry/ if you go far enough back, we’re all african, and if you go far enough forward, we’re all exactly X% everything after enough gene-mingling. but we’re not at that X% mix and we’re also not all african. we’re in an in-between stage where the cultural groups that are typically called “races” in this in-between moment on average tend to share ancestry and as a result, on average tend to be genetically similar. why are you making this sound like it’s a wild claim? I think of it as similar to taxonomy of species - there’s no line during evolution where something stops being one species and starts being another. just like there’s no hard line between races. but a sparrow is clearly not a giraffe. that’s a useful comment about their genetic differences that may or may not give you information related to the correlations of those differences. > “Naturally there are rough correlations between genes and ‘race’ in some instances” you don’t seem comfortable letting this fact lie without caveating the hell out of it, which makes your position seem ideologically motivated - which makes me question how much truth you’re willing to accept without obfuscating.
    - foldr 7y ago
      A Latino could have entirely white European ancestry or entirely indigenous ancestry (and those are far from the only possibilities). I think you just don't know what a Latino is (?) The blog post you link to might help you out here: "Latinos — people who trace their ancestry to the ethnically diverse regions of Latin America." "So for example, on average, people of Mexico have about 4 percent African ancestry, while for the average Puerto Rican the percentage is much higher." Comparing racial differences in humans to species differences is wildly inaccurate biologically, and a racist trope. I think it's clear who has the agenda here.