3 ms·

To do you the favor, as ashkenazi jew (at higher risk for a number of different genetic illnesses) nothing about my understanding of this is predicated upon the

To do you the favor, as ashkenazi jew (at higher risk for a number of different genetic illnesses) nothing about my understanding of this is predicated upon the concept of a race. That there is a genetically distinct haplotype group that corresponds to many folk that share these traits with me, is sufficient. By the way, I don't think "African descent" is a race by any means of my understanding of the word...

wyager 4y ago
> That there is a genetically distinct haplotype group that corresponds to many folk that share these traits with me, is sufficient This is what race means. You are taking the same referent and giving it a different designator.
- freejazz 4y ago
  If that's the case I'm sure you can provide a link to a dictionary stating as much. In reality, such haplotype groups, when they even exist, do not correlate with what people call "race".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wyager 4y ago
    You mean one of the politically activist dictionaries like Webster, which have lately frequently changed the definition of words like "racism"? I'm sure if it becomes an issue they'll change their definition of "race" too, if they haven't already. And sure, not all races correspond directly to a specific HG, but all races have clear genetic differences which can be identified and classified purely mechanically. Multi-locus fixation clustering is an example of one such mechanical procedure. Unsupervised, something like k-means will generate racial groups equivalent to the ones humans come up with intuitively. In your case, the HG in question obviously corresponds to one such cluster.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      It was your choice of dictionary! No need to respond like that.
      - wyager 4y ago
        I read your comment as a snarky version of "read a dictionary" - apologies if that was not the intended meaning.
        freejazz 4y ago
        Well I don't think you'd find a dictionary that ever used that definition, because it's not the definition. And it has nothing to do with your allegation that dictionaries are woke and changing.
timr 4y ago
I grant you that "Ashkenazi Jew" is not a race by any conventional definition. But no, there's no "genetically distinct haplotype" that defines it. It's "Jews from central and eastern Europe", vs. those from Africa, the Middle East and Spain. [1] It's a broad, vague category, that is nonetheless sometimes still useful. Just like race. We don't pretend that Ashkenazi Jews don't exist, or are verboten from polite discussion because they are a "social construct." > By the way, I don't think "African descent" is a race by any means of my understanding of the word... Well, yeah. I pulled my punches there. I should have just said "black people", but even I felt squeamish about it. A great example of how this stuff confuses language and makes science harder. [1] https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/genetics-dictionary/def/ashkenazi-jews https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/genetics-di...
- n4r9 4y ago
  So you agree that humans do not have biological races, but you disagree with guidelines that promote a more accurate terminology?
  - timr 4y ago
    That is not what these "guidelines" do. I quoted the part where they deny that race is biological at all. There is simply no other way to read the words. Once again: > Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies. This is simply false. It's fiction. A substitution of political ideology for fact. People are attempting to turn "we don't have a precise test for race" into "race does not exist". Even ignoring the fact that today anyone can go to 23andMe and get a genetic test that will assign them a percentage composition by race / ethnic group, it's obvious that race is a useful, if imprecise, real-world categorization. We can acknowledge this without being discriminatory. This entire conversation is the equivalent of someone claiming that water was a "sociopolitical construct" before scientists knew what atoms and elements were, because we couldn't define it chemically. If HN existed in the pre-times, you'd have people chiming in that "other clear liquids exist and can be confused with water! the classification is incomplete!" as proof of claim.

wyager 4y ago

> That there is a genetically distinct haplotype group that corresponds to many folk that share these traits with me, is sufficient This is what race means. You are taking the same referent and giving it a different designator.

freejazz 4y ago
If that's the case I'm sure you can provide a link to a dictionary stating as much. In reality, such haplotype groups, when they even exist, do not correlate with what people call "race".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wyager 4y ago
  You mean one of the politically activist dictionaries like Webster, which have lately frequently changed the definition of words like "racism"? I'm sure if it becomes an issue they'll change their definition of "race" too, if they haven't already. And sure, not all races correspond directly to a specific HG, but all races have clear genetic differences which can be identified and classified purely mechanically. Multi-locus fixation clustering is an example of one such mechanical procedure. Unsupervised, something like k-means will generate racial groups equivalent to the ones humans come up with intuitively. In your case, the HG in question obviously corresponds to one such cluster.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    It was your choice of dictionary! No need to respond like that.
    - wyager 4y ago
      I read your comment as a snarky version of "read a dictionary" - apologies if that was not the intended meaning.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        Well I don't think you'd find a dictionary that ever used that definition, because it's not the definition. And it has nothing to do with your allegation that dictionaries are woke and changing.

timr 4y ago

I grant you that "Ashkenazi Jew" is not a race by any conventional definition. But no, there's no "genetically distinct haplotype" that defines it. It's "Jews from central and eastern Europe", vs. those from Africa, the Middle East and Spain. [1] It's a broad, vague category, that is nonetheless sometimes still useful. Just like race. We don't pretend that Ashkenazi Jews don't exist, or are verboten from polite discussion because they are a "social construct." > By the way, I don't think "African descent" is a race by any means of my understanding of the word... Well, yeah. I pulled my punches there. I should have just said "black people", but even I felt squeamish about it. A great example of how this stuff confuses language and makes science harder. [1] https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/genetics-dictionary/def/ashkenazi-jews https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/genetics-di...

n4r9 4y ago
So you agree that humans do not have biological races, but you disagree with guidelines that promote a more accurate terminology?
- timr 4y ago
  That is not what these "guidelines" do. I quoted the part where they deny that race is biological at all. There is simply no other way to read the words. Once again: > Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies. This is simply false. It's fiction. A substitution of political ideology for fact. People are attempting to turn "we don't have a precise test for race" into "race does not exist". Even ignoring the fact that today anyone can go to 23andMe and get a genetic test that will assign them a percentage composition by race / ethnic group, it's obvious that race is a useful, if imprecise, real-world categorization. We can acknowledge this without being discriminatory. This entire conversation is the equivalent of someone claiming that water was a "sociopolitical construct" before scientists knew what atoms and elements were, because we couldn't define it chemically. If HN existed in the pre-times, you'd have people chiming in that "other clear liquids exist and can be confused with water! the classification is incomplete!" as proof of claim.