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Read the links. Because those aren't providing evidence for the claim. They're just repeatedly asserting what I've already told you is faulty reasoning: we don'
by timr 4y ago
Read the links. Because those aren't providing evidence for the claim. They're just repeatedly asserting what I've already told you is faulty reasoning: we don't have a precise genetic definition of "race" today, therefore it doesn't exist.
That's wrong. Regarding the specific papers:
The first explicitly admits that race exists in the opening sentence (oops), then proceeds to say "the two most commonly used biological concepts of race" don't work in humans, therefore race doesn't exist ("There are no objective criteria for choosing one adaptive trait over another to define race. As a consequence, adaptive traits do not define races in humans.")
This is exactly the fallacious thinking I'm calling out. Great example.
The second is not a paper at all, but still admits that there's at least some biological basis for race, even though it's not precise. That's fine -- I'm not claiming it is precise:
> Research indicates that the concept of “five races” does, to an extent, describe the way human populations are distributed among the continents—but the lines between races are much more blurred than ancestry testing companies would have us believe
The third is saying that a single, specific measurement of genetic diversity fails to define race. Again, that's fine. Saying "test X doesn't define race" != "race does not exist":
> These limitations on FST are demonstrated algebraically and in the context of analyzing dinucleotide repeat allele frequencies for a set of eight loci genotyped in eight human groups and in chimpanzees. In our analyses, estimates of FST fail to identify important variation.
Overall, these illustrate exactly what I've said: race is clearly real and we know it when we see it, but it's not precise, and we don't have a biological test that defines it. Those who extend this to "race is a sociopolitical construct" are engaged in a through-the-looking-glass form of motivated reasoning. And it's a very convenient form of reasoning, because if you make it "wrong" to say that race exists, you prevent anyone from doing the research that might produce such a test.
- n4r9 4y agoThe guidelines include the qualifier "at least based on modern biological criteria". This is true: if you use the modern biological criteria for race, then there is only one human race.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y agoNobody just says that "observable differences in humans are rarely genetically related to actual genetic differences", they say "race has absolutely no meaning in humans - but here in animals it means exactly what lay-people mean when they say it". The elites are panicking about the perceived mental limits of the commoners. Normals know the limits of the words they use and actual bigots won't be deterred.
- n4r9 4y agoNo one is saying it has absolutely no meaning. They're saying that its meaning has its basis in culture rather than in biology. If you were to collect the DNA of every living human today and send the information to an alien species, would they say "aha, this clearly falls into five (or however many) pretty distinct categories"? Would anyone be able to tell them how to delineate those categories? Based on what I've read, I don't think so, which implies that what is meant by "race" is more cultural than biological.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y agoIt feels like this need to over-moderate use of this word is projection from people who grew up with a specific light/dark skin divide that also mapped nearly perfectly onto actual prejudice and inequality. The USA is like that episode of star trek where people were white on one side and black on the other. People use the word like "are the dutch racially tall or is it their diet?" and nobody means or takes offense.
- n4r9 4y agoI doubt this has much to do with US culture or any specific country. Nature is a German/British enterprise. The trend away from using "race" in genetics research appears to be a global thing.
- timr 4y ago> No one is saying it has absolutely no meaning. They're saying that its meaning has its basis in culture rather than in biology. And that is 100% false. It's obviously biological in basis. It has useful meaning outside of "culture". We just don't have a reductive definition that satisfies the people who aspire to police our thoughts and language...and science. I'm not naïve about this. There's obviously this bad history where bigots tried to come up with "biological" arguments that some races were superior to others. It's ugly and wrong. But it's just as wrong to go to the opposite pole of the debate, and try to pretend that race is not a thing at all. Both positions are soft-minded extremism. We can accept that race is a real, biological thing (however fuzzy), and still say that race isn't a value judgment.