3 ms·

> differences between races. Race is a social construct, it's not a scientific category. There is only a continuous spectrum of skin tone. If someone is mixed

> differences between races. Race is a social construct, it's not a scientific category. There is only a continuous spectrum of skin tone. If someone is mixed parentage, what "race" are they?

beervirus 6y ago
The lines are blurry, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Is sickle cell anemia a social construct?
IgorPartola 6y ago
Ugh. Look ignoring race is why people of color systematically get worse medical treatment. Look at Sickle Cell Anemia. It is widely documented that people of color whose ancestors were from Africa and sub Sahara are much susceptible to it. This has been studied extensively and all potential confounding factors have been ruled out. Is it racist to study this? Is it racist to use our understanding of genetic research to try to figure out how to treat this particular syndrome? Race the social construct is a social construct. We are the same species. Period, the end. But differences in genetics and physiology do warrant study because this is how we can find treatments and preventative measures to a multitude of disease. This is a lot like saying that research that shows that men are more susceptible to heart attacks then women is sexists because gender is a social construct. Gender is a complex topic that evolves with our evolving understanding of wha it means to be human on a philosophical level. But the X chromosome isn’t a social construct and has very direct very tangible effects. You can’t call it a social construct. In short: when it comes to how we build a society, recognize differences and account for them to bring as much economic opportunity equality to everyone. When it comes to medicine, study everything including genetic differences in order to get the best understanding of the problem at hand. Getting offended doesn’t get us closer to for example a cure for COVID, does it?
- hclimente 6y ago
  This "race is a social construct" meme is something I have been trying to grapple recently. I think the point is that races are based on a handful of cherry-picked phenotype differences. On the one hand, these characteristics are a decent proxy for human migrations in the past and might map to evolutionary events with clinical implications. On the other hand, another set of genetically conditioned characteristics would be similarly good at that. In an alternate universe, humans might have defined race based on hair color and height, and that would possibly match evolutionary history in another useful way.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    The episode of Rick and Morty about Unity has a race war based on nipple shape. But if you want a really interesting thought experiment consider what would happen if other species of humans than sapiens would have survived along us. Would the Declaration of Independence start with “we the people” or “we the sapiens”? Would the myth of Christ be that he died for sins of men or some specific subset of humans? But really I don’t see much of a problem with race both being a social construct and a biological reality in the sense that we are talking about two related but separate phenomena. Socially, race is a construct. The idea that judging by your skin color or shape of skull we can tell how smart or virtuous you are is bogus. A lot of people have tried to justify science behind it and all of it has not been science. Scientifically we have a number of genetic differences that can be traced between different origins of our genetic trees. Some of these are inconsequential like some people having straight hair and others having curly hair. Others are more impactful like ability to metabolize lactose as adults. Or susceptibility to heart disease or certain cancers. The kicker is that it is easier to tell the public “if you are ethnicity X you might want to get your heart checked out 5 years before another ethnicity because statistically it’s more beneficial that way” than to say the same thing as “if you have genes A, B, and C”. When my doctor tells me that because I am Easter European my cholesterol is more likely to be elevated, I don’t take offense to that. Having said all that, don’t use “blacks” or “whites” as a damn noun. That isn’t ok.
JamesBarney 6y ago
I don't really know what a social construct is. What is a scientific category vs a non-scientific category? And I don't think every item needs to fall neatly into a category for that category to be useful. If I say 86% of african americans have a hypersensitivity to warfarin which means that if they were given the same dose as a white person they'd have a much increased risk of stroke. Clearly in the previous sentence the distinction of ethnicity is useful and the information makes people safer.
leafboi 6y ago
I don't agree with scholarship on this. Race is just a word with a blurry definition it does not mean that these categories are non-existent. A continuous spectrum of skin tone and physical features does not eliminate the existence of categories. The first thing that needs to be addressed here is that not everything is a continuous spectrum either. Race like speciation forms off of branching meaning that although two races come from the same origin the branches form a hard line. Allow me to elucidate: O / \ B A / \ C | D If population C and D descended from O then yes there is a continuous spectrum from C to O and from O to D but not from C directly to D. There is an actual hard distinction from C to D and the next step after this is speciation. For the greater majority of mongoloids and caucasoids this is the division that exists, although there is a definite population that is the O race, C and D have deviated enough where hard lines between skin tone and genetic markers exist in a high enough quantity that a categorization can be made. Second as a chinese american born in the states what words would you use to categorize me versus you a white pasty caucasian? It is not a purely a social construct. We have hard lines that can be categorized, you can instantly derive my genetic origins and make predictions about my culture from race alone. Additionally have you ever tried 23 and me? The company can literally trace your "racial" origins from biological markers alone. If such categories don't exist how can a genetic analysis of your genes trace such markers and place you in a category? If anything the whole "race doesn't exist" movement is more of a social construct in itself among the social sciences. It comes from a strange phenomenon that occurs because humanity hasn't branched out long enough. The phenomenon is basically this: If you look at the tree diagram above what's going on is that the percentage of genetic similarities among all humans is 99.9% The differences between all humans are more or less 0.1% with some people having slightly greater differences and others having less. You would think though that there should be a greater difference between groups C and D then between C and B but what they find is that the amount of genetic differences between people of the same race is more or less the same as the amount of genetic differences between people of different races. Part of what causes this is the fact that humanity hasn't been around long enough for genetic divergence among different races to become greater than the genetic diversity within the racial population itself. Given a longer period of divergence you will begin to be able to say that the genetic differences between C and D are greater than C and B. From this many scholars say that "race doesn't exist" (yet). The logic doesn't really make sense as intuitively race is categorized by genetic similarities not differences. Africans have the genes for darker skin and Caucasians have the genes for lighter skin. Because groups share genetic characteristics and markers, they are part of the same "race." The percentage of genetic differences is not a factor in categorization. Thus racial vocabulary can be used to classify groups that share these genetic similarities. The motivation for this whole "race" doesn't exist phenomenon among academia is to me more of a reaction to the historical negatives associated with "race." Either way, the algorithms on 23 and me already encode exact formal definitions of race so the scientific and genetic formalization of the concept of race is not only possible, it is already done. > If someone is mixed parentage, what "race" are they? English nomenclature allows for creative composition of vocabulary. You can call someone of mixed parentage a "mixed race."

> differences between races. Race is a social construct, it's not a scientific category. There is only a continuous spectrum of skin tone. If someone is mixed parentage, what "race" are they?

beervirus 6y ago

The lines are blurry, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Is sickle cell anemia a social construct?

IgorPartola 6y ago

Ugh. Look ignoring race is why people of color systematically get worse medical treatment. Look at Sickle Cell Anemia. It is widely documented that people of color whose ancestors were from Africa and sub Sahara are much susceptible to it. This has been studied extensively and all potential confounding factors have been ruled out. Is it racist to study this? Is it racist to use our understanding of genetic research to try to figure out how to treat this particular syndrome? Race the social construct is a social construct. We are the same species. Period, the end. But differences in genetics and physiology do warrant study because this is how we can find treatments and preventative measures to a multitude of disease. This is a lot like saying that research that shows that men are more susceptible to heart attacks then women is sexists because gender is a social construct. Gender is a complex topic that evolves with our evolving understanding of wha it means to be human on a philosophical level. But the X chromosome isn’t a social construct and has very direct very tangible effects. You can’t call it a social construct. In short: when it comes to how we build a society, recognize differences and account for them to bring as much economic opportunity equality to everyone. When it comes to medicine, study everything including genetic differences in order to get the best understanding of the problem at hand. Getting offended doesn’t get us closer to for example a cure for COVID, does it?

hclimente 6y ago
This "race is a social construct" meme is something I have been trying to grapple recently. I think the point is that races are based on a handful of cherry-picked phenotype differences. On the one hand, these characteristics are a decent proxy for human migrations in the past and might map to evolutionary events with clinical implications. On the other hand, another set of genetically conditioned characteristics would be similarly good at that. In an alternate universe, humans might have defined race based on hair color and height, and that would possibly match evolutionary history in another useful way.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  The episode of Rick and Morty about Unity has a race war based on nipple shape. But if you want a really interesting thought experiment consider what would happen if other species of humans than sapiens would have survived along us. Would the Declaration of Independence start with “we the people” or “we the sapiens”? Would the myth of Christ be that he died for sins of men or some specific subset of humans? But really I don’t see much of a problem with race both being a social construct and a biological reality in the sense that we are talking about two related but separate phenomena. Socially, race is a construct. The idea that judging by your skin color or shape of skull we can tell how smart or virtuous you are is bogus. A lot of people have tried to justify science behind it and all of it has not been science. Scientifically we have a number of genetic differences that can be traced between different origins of our genetic trees. Some of these are inconsequential like some people having straight hair and others having curly hair. Others are more impactful like ability to metabolize lactose as adults. Or susceptibility to heart disease or certain cancers. The kicker is that it is easier to tell the public “if you are ethnicity X you might want to get your heart checked out 5 years before another ethnicity because statistically it’s more beneficial that way” than to say the same thing as “if you have genes A, B, and C”. When my doctor tells me that because I am Easter European my cholesterol is more likely to be elevated, I don’t take offense to that. Having said all that, don’t use “blacks” or “whites” as a damn noun. That isn’t ok.

JamesBarney 6y ago

I don't really know what a social construct is. What is a scientific category vs a non-scientific category? And I don't think every item needs to fall neatly into a category for that category to be useful. If I say 86% of african americans have a hypersensitivity to warfarin which means that if they were given the same dose as a white person they'd have a much increased risk of stroke. Clearly in the previous sentence the distinction of ethnicity is useful and the information makes people safer.

leafboi 6y ago

I don't agree with scholarship on this. Race is just a word with a blurry definition it does not mean that these categories are non-existent. A continuous spectrum of skin tone and physical features does not eliminate the existence of categories. The first thing that needs to be addressed here is that not everything is a continuous spectrum either. Race like speciation forms off of branching meaning that although two races come from the same origin the branches form a hard line. Allow me to elucidate: O / \ B A / \ C | D If population C and D descended from O then yes there is a continuous spectrum from C to O and from O to D but not from C directly to D. There is an actual hard distinction from C to D and the next step after this is speciation. For the greater majority of mongoloids and caucasoids this is the division that exists, although there is a definite population that is the O race, C and D have deviated enough where hard lines between skin tone and genetic markers exist in a high enough quantity that a categorization can be made. Second as a chinese american born in the states what words would you use to categorize me versus you a white pasty caucasian? It is not a purely a social construct. We have hard lines that can be categorized, you can instantly derive my genetic origins and make predictions about my culture from race alone. Additionally have you ever tried 23 and me? The company can literally trace your "racial" origins from biological markers alone. If such categories don't exist how can a genetic analysis of your genes trace such markers and place you in a category? If anything the whole "race doesn't exist" movement is more of a social construct in itself among the social sciences. It comes from a strange phenomenon that occurs because humanity hasn't branched out long enough. The phenomenon is basically this: If you look at the tree diagram above what's going on is that the percentage of genetic similarities among all humans is 99.9% The differences between all humans are more or less 0.1% with some people having slightly greater differences and others having less. You would think though that there should be a greater difference between groups C and D then between C and B but what they find is that the amount of genetic differences between people of the same race is more or less the same as the amount of genetic differences between people of different races. Part of what causes this is the fact that humanity hasn't been around long enough for genetic divergence among different races to become greater than the genetic diversity within the racial population itself. Given a longer period of divergence you will begin to be able to say that the genetic differences between C and D are greater than C and B. From this many scholars say that "race doesn't exist" (yet). The logic doesn't really make sense as intuitively race is categorized by genetic similarities not differences. Africans have the genes for darker skin and Caucasians have the genes for lighter skin. Because groups share genetic characteristics and markers, they are part of the same "race." The percentage of genetic differences is not a factor in categorization. Thus racial vocabulary can be used to classify groups that share these genetic similarities. The motivation for this whole "race" doesn't exist phenomenon among academia is to me more of a reaction to the historical negatives associated with "race." Either way, the algorithms on 23 and me already encode exact formal definitions of race so the scientific and genetic formalization of the concept of race is not only possible, it is already done. > If someone is mixed parentage, what "race" are they? English nomenclature allows for creative composition of vocabulary. You can call someone of mixed parentage a "mixed race."