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The fact that people believe this demonstrates an egregious misunderstanding of how genetics works. People have never been "bred" in any meaningful sense (e.g.

The fact that people believe this demonstrates an egregious misunderstanding of how genetics works. People have never been "bred" in any meaningful sense (e.g. for a long enough or in a consistently isolated way for selection to be relevant) in human history.

rajin444 4y ago
What does being bred have to do with the pattern of genetics influencing behavior? Are you saying there aren’t enough differences in human genetics to allow us to group them in a meaningful way?
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  I'm saying it's sad people still think eugenics has merit, despite being profoundly debunked and disproven repeatedly over the past century (and more).
barry-cotter 4y ago
> a consistently isolated way The San diverged from the rest of humanity ~200,000 years ago. Australian Aboriginals ~40,000 years ago. Amerindians ~12,000 years ago. No one’s been breeding humans but there’s been plenty of reproductive isolation. Enough that differences in selection pressures could easily lead to differences in traits. For a visible example 5,000 years ago there were no populations that looked like Swedes. Humans that pale did not exist apart from albinos.
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  None of this is true, there are no known human subspecies, not to mention human subspecies differentiated by geography.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Who said anything about subspecies? All human groups can breed with no issue. Humans are clearly differentiated by geography. Swedes don’t look like Arabs. Arabs don’t look like Sub Saharan Africans. None of these groups look like Indians or East Asians. Quite visible geographic differentiation. If the specific claims I made about the length of reproductive isolation are false you will find it easy to provide sources to that effect.
    - TameAntelope 4y ago
      All of those people you've named can and do look like one another, depending on circumstance. Every trait you can think of that you'd list as a "characteristic" of one of the groups you've named can be found in abundance in numerous other places as well, or accounted for due to environmental factors. There is no "canonical" "Swede" or "Arab". Your reliance on stereotype is not only racist but it's factually wrong. This is well studied, and if you are actually curious, there are many, many sources of information about this topic you can find yourself. Race does not exist, genetically. Period.
      - barry-cotter 4y ago
        I didn’t say anything about race. The word is useless, imprecise. There’s no canonical Swede or Arab? You don’t say. As I mentioned no one who looks like a Swede existed 5,000 years ago. That there is overlap between population characteristics does not mean they are identical. Some populations don’t overlap though. Healthy Pygmy and Maasai adult men do not overlap in height distribution. If you restrict your sample of Swedes to those with all ancestors born in Sweden in 1800 and do a similar restriction for Congolese there will be no overlap in skin color.
        TameAntelope 4y ago
        You definitely keep on talking about race. "Swede" is a race. "Arab" is a race, as you use it. There absolutely were ancient people who shared genetic traits (and therefore some expressed characteristics) with modern Swedish people. There literally must have been, that's how genetics work, and 5,000 years is barely a blink, genetically. What you are conflating (among many, many things) are environmental impacts on human maturation with genetics, and in exactly the same way that the eugenicists of the early 1900s were attempting to do. Every single thing you've said so far has been thoroughly debunked in the ensuing 100 years. You are spouting old, racist tropes, and I assume don't even know it. But maybe you do know it, and maybe that's the point.
- tsol 4y ago
  I don't see how one leads to another. The effect of living in Australia on a population of humans is entirely different than the effect of selectively being breeding dogs to be small and obedient. Just because both circumstances can exert selective pressure does not mean they are the same. Humans the world over, despite different geographies, have the same problems to contend with-- that's not the same thing as what we do when we selectively breed chihuahuas and great danes.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    I’m not saying there are differences in (pick a trait, any trait). I’m saying that anyone who tells you that differences don’t exist has to prove it. Rice farming is a very different way of life to pastoralist is very different to hoe agriculture is very different to hunting and gathering. Some populations have been following the ~same lifestyle for over a thousand years. There’s no principled reason that can’t cause populations to diverge. If someone wants to say different populations are the same in some non-metaphysical way they need to prove it. They can’t just assert it. Religion works on faith. Scientists bring facts.
    - astrange 4y ago
      The main reason differences don't exist is that the group of people they always want to claim has the differences (black people) aren't genetically related to each other and have more diversity than the rest of humanity.
    - tsol 4y ago
      >Religion works on faith. Scientists bring facts. What does religion have to do with this? I didn't say to to rely on faith, rely on the scientific institution that already came to a concensus a long time ago. The studies are out there, if you want to see proof. Just because I don't have them on hand doesn't mean they don't exist and need to be taken on faith
      - barry-cotter 4y ago
        > Just because both circumstances can exert selective pressure does not mean they are the same. Selective pressure makes change. Different selective pressure makes difference. Reproductive isolation makes large differences possible. Humans have lived in very different environments and been reproductively isolated. There is no a priori reason to believe human populations are the same on every trait. And they’re not. Similar on most things but not on everything.
- astrange 4y ago
  Skin color is a useful adaptation to getting enough Vitamin D and folate but predicts approximately nothing else about you or your genes, or how related you are to people with different skin color. A single generation more of population mixing and you can have a direct sibling with a completely different appearance.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    All that is true. How does it relate to the possibility or not of large differences between human populations? Interbreeding will reduce variation extremely quickly but we know reproductive isolation was very high between continents for a very long time. Even individual villages in India have jatis that have been living next to each other for centuries that haven’t interbred for over 1,000 years.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Genes run in families, not villages. How are the traits spreading across the entire population in that 1000 years enough to make the "large difference" instead of being averaged out again? Existing cases of that are founder effects or mating with someone truly different like a Denisovan[0]. More importantly this knowledge would be useless if you found it, because the only reason to know things is to make predictions, and this doesn't let you predict anything about the next generation. We're in modernity now and they can just move somewhere else. [0] which funny enough isn't considered a subspecies and doesn't have a Latin name because the scientist who discovered them thinks Latin names are pretentious.
      - barry-cotter 4y ago
        > How are the traits spreading across the entire population in that 1000 years enough to make the "large difference" instead of being averaged out again? Mating isn’t random. People are more likely to mate with those who live near them. So Southern Chinese are more like each other than Northern Chinese. Geography matters. Distance matters. If there’s reproductive isolation difference can emerge and persist. If there isn’t it won’t. Geography isn’t the only way populations stay distinct. Religion, language, means of sustenance can do it too but interbreeding can reduce difference very, very quickly as you note.

rajin444 4y ago

What does being bred have to do with the pattern of genetics influencing behavior? Are you saying there aren’t enough differences in human genetics to allow us to group them in a meaningful way?

TameAntelope 4y ago
I'm saying it's sad people still think eugenics has merit, despite being profoundly debunked and disproven repeatedly over the past century (and more).

barry-cotter 4y ago

> a consistently isolated way The San diverged from the rest of humanity ~200,000 years ago. Australian Aboriginals ~40,000 years ago. Amerindians ~12,000 years ago. No one’s been breeding humans but there’s been plenty of reproductive isolation. Enough that differences in selection pressures could easily lead to differences in traits. For a visible example 5,000 years ago there were no populations that looked like Swedes. Humans that pale did not exist apart from albinos.

TameAntelope 4y ago
None of this is true, there are no known human subspecies, not to mention human subspecies differentiated by geography.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Who said anything about subspecies? All human groups can breed with no issue. Humans are clearly differentiated by geography. Swedes don’t look like Arabs. Arabs don’t look like Sub Saharan Africans. None of these groups look like Indians or East Asians. Quite visible geographic differentiation. If the specific claims I made about the length of reproductive isolation are false you will find it easy to provide sources to that effect.
  - TameAntelope 4y ago
    All of those people you've named can and do look like one another, depending on circumstance. Every trait you can think of that you'd list as a "characteristic" of one of the groups you've named can be found in abundance in numerous other places as well, or accounted for due to environmental factors. There is no "canonical" "Swede" or "Arab". Your reliance on stereotype is not only racist but it's factually wrong. This is well studied, and if you are actually curious, there are many, many sources of information about this topic you can find yourself. Race does not exist, genetically. Period.
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      I didn’t say anything about race. The word is useless, imprecise. There’s no canonical Swede or Arab? You don’t say. As I mentioned no one who looks like a Swede existed 5,000 years ago. That there is overlap between population characteristics does not mean they are identical. Some populations don’t overlap though. Healthy Pygmy and Maasai adult men do not overlap in height distribution. If you restrict your sample of Swedes to those with all ancestors born in Sweden in 1800 and do a similar restriction for Congolese there will be no overlap in skin color.
      - TameAntelope 4y ago
        You definitely keep on talking about race. "Swede" is a race. "Arab" is a race, as you use it. There absolutely were ancient people who shared genetic traits (and therefore some expressed characteristics) with modern Swedish people. There literally must have been, that's how genetics work, and 5,000 years is barely a blink, genetically. What you are conflating (among many, many things) are environmental impacts on human maturation with genetics, and in exactly the same way that the eugenicists of the early 1900s were attempting to do. Every single thing you've said so far has been thoroughly debunked in the ensuing 100 years. You are spouting old, racist tropes, and I assume don't even know it. But maybe you do know it, and maybe that's the point.
tsol 4y ago
I don't see how one leads to another. The effect of living in Australia on a population of humans is entirely different than the effect of selectively being breeding dogs to be small and obedient. Just because both circumstances can exert selective pressure does not mean they are the same. Humans the world over, despite different geographies, have the same problems to contend with-- that's not the same thing as what we do when we selectively breed chihuahuas and great danes.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  I’m not saying there are differences in (pick a trait, any trait). I’m saying that anyone who tells you that differences don’t exist has to prove it. Rice farming is a very different way of life to pastoralist is very different to hoe agriculture is very different to hunting and gathering. Some populations have been following the ~same lifestyle for over a thousand years. There’s no principled reason that can’t cause populations to diverge. If someone wants to say different populations are the same in some non-metaphysical way they need to prove it. They can’t just assert it. Religion works on faith. Scientists bring facts.
  - astrange 4y ago
    The main reason differences don't exist is that the group of people they always want to claim has the differences (black people) aren't genetically related to each other and have more diversity than the rest of humanity.
  - tsol 4y ago
    >Religion works on faith. Scientists bring facts. What does religion have to do with this? I didn't say to to rely on faith, rely on the scientific institution that already came to a concensus a long time ago. The studies are out there, if you want to see proof. Just because I don't have them on hand doesn't mean they don't exist and need to be taken on faith
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      > Just because both circumstances can exert selective pressure does not mean they are the same. Selective pressure makes change. Different selective pressure makes difference. Reproductive isolation makes large differences possible. Humans have lived in very different environments and been reproductively isolated. There is no a priori reason to believe human populations are the same on every trait. And they’re not. Similar on most things but not on everything.
astrange 4y ago
Skin color is a useful adaptation to getting enough Vitamin D and folate but predicts approximately nothing else about you or your genes, or how related you are to people with different skin color. A single generation more of population mixing and you can have a direct sibling with a completely different appearance.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  All that is true. How does it relate to the possibility or not of large differences between human populations? Interbreeding will reduce variation extremely quickly but we know reproductive isolation was very high between continents for a very long time. Even individual villages in India have jatis that have been living next to each other for centuries that haven’t interbred for over 1,000 years.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Genes run in families, not villages. How are the traits spreading across the entire population in that 1000 years enough to make the "large difference" instead of being averaged out again? Existing cases of that are founder effects or mating with someone truly different like a Denisovan[0]. More importantly this knowledge would be useless if you found it, because the only reason to know things is to make predictions, and this doesn't let you predict anything about the next generation. We're in modernity now and they can just move somewhere else. [0] which funny enough isn't considered a subspecies and doesn't have a Latin name because the scientist who discovered them thinks Latin names are pretentious.
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      > How are the traits spreading across the entire population in that 1000 years enough to make the "large difference" instead of being averaged out again? Mating isn’t random. People are more likely to mate with those who live near them. So Southern Chinese are more like each other than Northern Chinese. Geography matters. Distance matters. If there’s reproductive isolation difference can emerge and persist. If there isn’t it won’t. Geography isn’t the only way populations stay distinct. Religion, language, means of sustenance can do it too but interbreeding can reduce difference very, very quickly as you note.