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> I think you're referring to the fact that genetic differences between individuals within a group are larger than differences between groups But that's the ru
by Chabsff 2y ago
> I think you're referring to the fact that genetic differences between individuals within a group are larger than differences between groups
But that's the rub though: How do you define that there are groups in the first place? There is no way to land at our socially-defined set of races via objective means.
- z7 2y agoHow do we differentiate between yellow and orange? The spectrum of colors is a continuum. Is the difference between yellow and orange not real?
- mcphage 2y ago> Is the difference between yellow and orange not real? "Yellow" and "Orange" are words, not facts about the universe. They correspond (loosely) to physical observations, at least when it comes to perceived colors (there are plenty of optical illusions which reveal the vast gulf between 'the color a thing is' and 'the color we perceive'). So I don't really know what you mean by "real" here, but is it an objective fact? No.
- z7 2y agoRight, the difference between what we call "yellow" and "orange" corresponds to objective physical properties. I could reject the way we have decided to group these differences, but the existence of different wavelengths seems to be a fact about the universe.
- mcphage 2y agoThe different wavelengths is a fact about the universe, but there is nothing about the wavelengths themselves that makes one “yellow” and one “orange”. That’s all added by us culturally.
- slibhb 2y ago> "Yellow" and "Orange" are words, not facts about the universe. That's a philosophical position called nominalism. You can be a nominalist but other people disagree.
- slibhb 2y agoI think you're begging the question here. If you look at the differences between DNA, there will be clusters (because some people are more closely related than other people). These clusters are the groups I'm talking about.