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Ok, but there are clear morphological, genetical, etc. differences between e.g. a Han Chinese person and a Yoruba person. So putting aside politics, sociology a

Ok, but there are clear morphological, genetical, etc. differences between e.g. a Han Chinese person and a Yoruba person. So putting aside politics, sociology and whatnot, purely on a scientific basis, what term do you use for these differences? When you say that "these people belong to different $INSERT_TERM_HERE", what's the correct term to substitute?

foldr 1y ago
There are also morphological and genetic differences between, say, an average 'white' Swedish person and an average 'white' Spanish person. But our systems of racial classification tend to put them in the same group just because they both happen to have light skin. Naturally, if you take two groups of people who've long inhabited different parts of the world (with little to no historical interaction between the groups), then you'll find genetic differences. The point is that there is no biological motivation for the specific set of racial categories that the US and other societies have developed. An objective Martian biologist studying humans would not group us into 'white humans', 'black humans', ... etc.
- meindnoch 1y ago
  >there is no biological motivation for the specific set of racial categories that the US and other societies have developed. An objective Martian biologist studying humans would not group us into 'white humans', 'black humans', ... etc. Then why do biologists distinguish subspecies of other animals? E.g. look at the subspecies of Panthera tigris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger#Subspecies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger#Subspecies
  - foldr 1y ago
    Some animals have subspecies. Humans don't. This is something that's widely misunderstood popularly but which is indubitable biologically. For example, many people are not aware that there is vastly more genetic variation between different breeds of dog than there is between any two groups of humans. But regardless, the more important point is that whatever biologically-motivated categories humans might be grouped by would not correspond to 'races' as normally understood.
    - nomel 1y ago
      There are some (small) genetic populations whose genetics diverged so much, from geographic separation, that they have fertility problems [1]. What's left? Seems like something left over from the old science perspective that "humans are not animals", more than anything. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8600657/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8600657/
      - foldr 1y ago
        That article doesn't say anything about small populations. The word 'subpopulation' appears in the abstract, but it's talking about subpopulations of sperm in ejaculate. I have to say, this is a super weird paper to suddenly pull out of nowhere in order to make an argument against the modern biological consensus that there are no subspecies of humans. It says nothing about species or subspecies, or even different populations of humans. Did you just Google some keywords and go with the first result? I'm genuinely puzzled.
        nomel 1y ago
        > However, in this article, I show that female-mediated sperm selection can also facilitate assortative fusion between genetically compatible gametes. Based on this evidence, I argue that reproductive failure does not necessarily exclusively represent a pathological condition, but can also result from sexual selection (‘mate choice’) at the level of the gametes. I'm haphazardly suggesting that the above is the same as: > "There are some (small) genetic populations whose genetics diverged so much, from geographic separation, that they have fertility problems [1]. We have genetic populations that are the result of geographic separation, and we even have genetic divergence that makes reproduction difficult/impossible. Again, what's left? Why can't we categorize human genetic populations to the same level? Please be specific in what's missing? > It says nothing about species or subspecies Why would it? If the categorization of humans included subspecies, I couldn't have responded.
        foldr 1y ago
        Those two things really aren't the same at all, so I don't see where you're going with this. If it's an established biological fact that there are different subspecies of humans, then it should be possible to find a reference for that.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > Then why do biologists distinguish subspecies of other animals? They do, when there are things that seem to be subspecies, they don't do it just because there is an arbitrary requirement for every species to have subspecies. There's been dispute about whether various archaic human groups were separate species or subspecies, and if what we now call modern humans weren't the only ones still around, that might be a more acute debate and might be resolved in favor of subspecies, but the others aren't still around, so...

foldr 1y ago

There are also morphological and genetic differences between, say, an average 'white' Swedish person and an average 'white' Spanish person. But our systems of racial classification tend to put them in the same group just because they both happen to have light skin. Naturally, if you take two groups of people who've long inhabited different parts of the world (with little to no historical interaction between the groups), then you'll find genetic differences. The point is that there is no biological motivation for the specific set of racial categories that the US and other societies have developed. An objective Martian biologist studying humans would not group us into 'white humans', 'black humans', ... etc.

meindnoch 1y ago
>there is no biological motivation for the specific set of racial categories that the US and other societies have developed. An objective Martian biologist studying humans would not group us into 'white humans', 'black humans', ... etc. Then why do biologists distinguish subspecies of other animals? E.g. look at the subspecies of Panthera tigris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger#Subspecies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger#Subspecies
- foldr 1y ago
  Some animals have subspecies. Humans don't. This is something that's widely misunderstood popularly but which is indubitable biologically. For example, many people are not aware that there is vastly more genetic variation between different breeds of dog than there is between any two groups of humans. But regardless, the more important point is that whatever biologically-motivated categories humans might be grouped by would not correspond to 'races' as normally understood.
  - nomel 1y ago
    There are some (small) genetic populations whose genetics diverged so much, from geographic separation, that they have fertility problems [1]. What's left? Seems like something left over from the old science perspective that "humans are not animals", more than anything. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8600657/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8600657/
    - foldr 1y ago
      That article doesn't say anything about small populations. The word 'subpopulation' appears in the abstract, but it's talking about subpopulations of sperm in ejaculate. I have to say, this is a super weird paper to suddenly pull out of nowhere in order to make an argument against the modern biological consensus that there are no subspecies of humans. It says nothing about species or subspecies, or even different populations of humans. Did you just Google some keywords and go with the first result? I'm genuinely puzzled.
      - nomel 1y ago
        > However, in this article, I show that female-mediated sperm selection can also facilitate assortative fusion between genetically compatible gametes. Based on this evidence, I argue that reproductive failure does not necessarily exclusively represent a pathological condition, but can also result from sexual selection (‘mate choice’) at the level of the gametes. I'm haphazardly suggesting that the above is the same as: > "There are some (small) genetic populations whose genetics diverged so much, from geographic separation, that they have fertility problems [1]. We have genetic populations that are the result of geographic separation, and we even have genetic divergence that makes reproduction difficult/impossible. Again, what's left? Why can't we categorize human genetic populations to the same level? Please be specific in what's missing? > It says nothing about species or subspecies Why would it? If the categorization of humans included subspecies, I couldn't have responded.
        foldr 1y ago
        Those two things really aren't the same at all, so I don't see where you're going with this. If it's an established biological fact that there are different subspecies of humans, then it should be possible to find a reference for that.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Then why do biologists distinguish subspecies of other animals? They do, when there are things that seem to be subspecies, they don't do it just because there is an arbitrary requirement for every species to have subspecies. There's been dispute about whether various archaic human groups were separate species or subspecies, and if what we now call modern humans weren't the only ones still around, that might be a more acute debate and might be resolved in favor of subspecies, but the others aren't still around, so...