3 ms·

I don’t understand your comment. Why is your current favorite biology “and its treatment of race”?

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
Because, and I don't think that is questioned, race as a biological concept exists and, as Prentice Hall quote demonstrates, the publisher unilaterally decided on a lie of omission, while attempting to teach. It is not a good look if the goal is teach kids basic biology. Unless, naturally, it is not the goal; or even a goal.
- leephillips 5y ago
  I assure you that it is questioned. How do you define race, biologically? How would you test, say, former president Obama to determine his biological race? EDIT: To be more precise: of course there is no question that the biological concept “exists”. The biological concept of Lamarckian genetics exists, too. The question is whether race is meaningful, useful, and whether it should be taught in the textbook.
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    How do you define dog breeds, biologically? How would you test, say, a Goldendoodle for its biological breed?
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Interesting question. I have no idea.
      - akomtu 5y ago
        I can help. You can measure various traits of the dog, such as ear length or nose shape, and compare the results with a table that says that such and such breed has ears of such and such shape.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    How do you test for things if you can't see them? Does God exists? Does wind? We look for effects. No. I am not going to go that route, because helpfully Webster dictionary defines race as: "any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry" But that is not biological race definition. Fair enough. From biologyonline ( https://www.biologyonline.com/ https://www.biologyonline.com/ ): "(1) A group or population of humans categorized on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics (such as color of skin, eyes, and hair)." Now, I get that it is a touchy topic in US, but what heritable characteristics does Obama possess that are visible to the naked eye?
    - leephillips 5y ago
      So different people look different. Why is that an important principle of biology that needs to be developed in a textbook? How does it help us to understand anything? And I persist: if you can’t measure it, and tell me what someone’s “race” is in a way that biologists in general would agree with, the concept is too wobbly to be of any scientific interest. Finding definitions merely shows that the word exists. It doesn’t support the idea that it’s a meaningful or useful categorization.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
        > So different people look different. Why is that an important principle of biology that needs to be developed in a textbook? How does it help us to understand anything? Race strongly correlates with other things; for instance, per https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm "White (Non-Hispanic)" men are most at risk of heart disease, and "American Indian or Alaska Native" are winning by several percentage points. That is deeply of scientific interest.
        leephillips 5y ago
        In order to apply these supposed correlations, we would need to be able to determine the patient’s race. How do we do that? (It seems to me that there is at least a hint of tautology in your comment. How can we talk about these correlations with race unless we're assuming that racial categorizations are meaningful in the first place?)
  - akomtu 5y ago
    That's super easy, in fact. Measure all significant physical traits, such as eye color or height, group the resulting vectors using PCA, notice that the vectors form a few distinct clusters.
- mabub24 5y ago
  You're really referring to genetic ancestry, which is regularly used in biology without any issue. The term "race" is really not used anymore, except in a social/historical/statistical (population) context for humans. It's only informally used in human biology. > Because, and I don't think that is questioned, race as a biological concept exists This is questioned constantly, and is far from the standard or consensus opinion for human biology. In reality, most scientists and biologists don't use the term "race" often or at all precisely because of it's historical connotations and social uses. Removing the term "race" from a science textbook does not change anything really, beside clarify that race in the context of racial essentialism in biology is a useless concept. Understanding how the concept of race was used to abuse science, and in turn abuse large swathes of the population, is more important, and likely has a role in learning about the ethics and uses of biology.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    Hmm. I like the explanation and I appreciate some of the concern. I would personally argue its absence says more than its presence given race is used in other contexts you listed. You simply can't get away from it when discussing demographics, so I question a little your statement that the term is not used in biology or other sciences. Could you share an example of a paper that follows that 'no race' ( "at all" ) approach? I may very well be wrong. I am pretty ancient. << This is questioned constantly, and is far from the standard or consensus opinion for human biology. You clearly are more immersed in it than me. Could you elaborate a little bit and link to two recent opposing papers? Sorry for all the questions. I am genuinely curious now.
    - mabub24 5y ago
      To be clear, the term is used and has been used. But the idea that it's a concept that everyone agrees on, or that everyone agrees must be used, is not at all true. The debate is alive and well in philosophy and in the sciences. Personally, I don't really see any use for the term in science, beyond referring to a social/informally named group. For a philosophical discussion see a good summary here: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/what-is-race-four-philosophical-views/ https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/what-is-race-four-philosophical-... And for a very extensive summary of relevant scientific and genetic findings, see the wikipedia page on Race as a system of human categorization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)#Biology,_anatomy,_and_medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)#Bi... The key quote from that article is: > Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable,[12][13][14][15][16][17] scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways.[18] While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive[7] or simplistic.[19] Still others argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance because all living humans belong to the same subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.[20][21] You can clearly see a number of competing views, including constructivist, essentialist, and anti-essentialist, the idea that the concept of race is irrelevant to the study of biology.

Because, and I don't think that is questioned, race as a biological concept exists and, as Prentice Hall quote demonstrates, the publisher unilaterally decided on a lie of omission, while attempting to teach. It is not a good look if the goal is teach kids basic biology. Unless, naturally, it is not the goal; or even a goal.

leephillips 5y ago
I assure you that it is questioned. How do you define race, biologically? How would you test, say, former president Obama to determine his biological race? EDIT: To be more precise: of course there is no question that the biological concept “exists”. The biological concept of Lamarckian genetics exists, too. The question is whether race is meaningful, useful, and whether it should be taught in the textbook.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  How do you define dog breeds, biologically? How would you test, say, a Goldendoodle for its biological breed?
  - leephillips 5y ago
    Interesting question. I have no idea.
    - akomtu 5y ago
      I can help. You can measure various traits of the dog, such as ear length or nose shape, and compare the results with a table that says that such and such breed has ears of such and such shape.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  How do you test for things if you can't see them? Does God exists? Does wind? We look for effects. No. I am not going to go that route, because helpfully Webster dictionary defines race as: "any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry" But that is not biological race definition. Fair enough. From biologyonline ( https://www.biologyonline.com/ https://www.biologyonline.com/ ): "(1) A group or population of humans categorized on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics (such as color of skin, eyes, and hair)." Now, I get that it is a touchy topic in US, but what heritable characteristics does Obama possess that are visible to the naked eye?
  - leephillips 5y ago
    So different people look different. Why is that an important principle of biology that needs to be developed in a textbook? How does it help us to understand anything? And I persist: if you can’t measure it, and tell me what someone’s “race” is in a way that biologists in general would agree with, the concept is too wobbly to be of any scientific interest. Finding definitions merely shows that the word exists. It doesn’t support the idea that it’s a meaningful or useful categorization.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      > So different people look different. Why is that an important principle of biology that needs to be developed in a textbook? How does it help us to understand anything? Race strongly correlates with other things; for instance, per https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm "White (Non-Hispanic)" men are most at risk of heart disease, and "American Indian or Alaska Native" are winning by several percentage points. That is deeply of scientific interest.
      - leephillips 5y ago
        In order to apply these supposed correlations, we would need to be able to determine the patient’s race. How do we do that? (It seems to me that there is at least a hint of tautology in your comment. How can we talk about these correlations with race unless we're assuming that racial categorizations are meaningful in the first place?)
- akomtu 5y ago
  That's super easy, in fact. Measure all significant physical traits, such as eye color or height, group the resulting vectors using PCA, notice that the vectors form a few distinct clusters.
mabub24 5y ago
You're really referring to genetic ancestry, which is regularly used in biology without any issue. The term "race" is really not used anymore, except in a social/historical/statistical (population) context for humans. It's only informally used in human biology. > Because, and I don't think that is questioned, race as a biological concept exists This is questioned constantly, and is far from the standard or consensus opinion for human biology. In reality, most scientists and biologists don't use the term "race" often or at all precisely because of it's historical connotations and social uses. Removing the term "race" from a science textbook does not change anything really, beside clarify that race in the context of racial essentialism in biology is a useless concept. Understanding how the concept of race was used to abuse science, and in turn abuse large swathes of the population, is more important, and likely has a role in learning about the ethics and uses of biology.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  Hmm. I like the explanation and I appreciate some of the concern. I would personally argue its absence says more than its presence given race is used in other contexts you listed. You simply can't get away from it when discussing demographics, so I question a little your statement that the term is not used in biology or other sciences. Could you share an example of a paper that follows that 'no race' ( "at all" ) approach? I may very well be wrong. I am pretty ancient. << This is questioned constantly, and is far from the standard or consensus opinion for human biology. You clearly are more immersed in it than me. Could you elaborate a little bit and link to two recent opposing papers? Sorry for all the questions. I am genuinely curious now.
  - mabub24 5y ago
    To be clear, the term is used and has been used. But the idea that it's a concept that everyone agrees on, or that everyone agrees must be used, is not at all true. The debate is alive and well in philosophy and in the sciences. Personally, I don't really see any use for the term in science, beyond referring to a social/informally named group. For a philosophical discussion see a good summary here: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/what-is-race-four-philosophical-views/ https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/what-is-race-four-philosophical-... And for a very extensive summary of relevant scientific and genetic findings, see the wikipedia page on Race as a system of human categorization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)#Biology,_anatomy,_and_medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)#Bi... The key quote from that article is: > Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable,[12][13][14][15][16][17] scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways.[18] While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive[7] or simplistic.[19] Still others argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance because all living humans belong to the same subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.[20][21] You can clearly see a number of competing views, including constructivist, essentialist, and anti-essentialist, the idea that the concept of race is irrelevant to the study of biology.