5 ms·

"Natives did not make good slaves, and so Africans were imported." That alone is so innocuous as to appear in elementary school textbooks. Is this really what t

by emjr 11y ago

"Natives did not make good slaves, and so Africans were imported." That alone is so innocuous as to appear in elementary school textbooks. Is this really what the whole row is about?

cactusface 11y ago
No, it's because he said it was due to genetic differences between population groups. This makes him a "true" racist in that he believe there are different races, or sub-species, of homo sapiens (sapiens). There is a scientific consensus that this is not the case, because races only exist if population groups are completely isolated, which humans never have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism
- andrewchambers 11y ago
  I find asserting superiority of one race over another hard to justify, but is it crazy to think there are differences? Dogs are the same species, but people do assign traits like aggression/playfulness to different breeds.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - cactusface 11y ago
    There aren't "races" in the sense of Darwin's finches because there is interbreeding between population groups, that's all.
    - tjradcliffe 11y ago
      Redefining the word "race" so it does not apply to the human varieties does not make the fact of human varieties go away, and so fails to make a counter-argument against racists. "Racism" exists, and saying "race doesn't exist" doesn't change that. All it does is mean that to be consistent you'll have to call it "variety-ism", which is awkward and irrelevant.
      - andrewchambers 11y ago
        Racism is asserting superiority of one group of humans over another, and generalizing without evidence. You could think certain people are genetically better adapted to cold or hot climates. That by itself is not racism, it becomes racism when you say that everyone who cannot stand cold weather is inferior, when in reality, it is totally dependent on circumstances. I think people failing to see the difference stops some honest discussion and people go on a witch hunt. In this case, blocking the person may well be justified however.
        cactusface 11y ago
        I'm repeating myself here, but per WP, "Scientific racism is [...] alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."
        yarvin9 11y ago
        It seems worth taking this criticism up with the authors of, for example, Risch et al 2005 [0]. From the abstract: "Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity." It seems worth asking how a paper like this got published, as late as 2005. Scientific racism may be even more entrenched than many have feared... [0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/
        cactusface 11y ago
        What do you do with all the interracial children? Please forgive the oxymoron.
        Jando 11y ago
        I don't want to read too far into your comment, but if the intent was similar to: "Interracial children don't fall into classical racial categories and, as such, are proof that racial categories don't exist," that's fallacious. The fact that a lab and poodle can produce a labradoodle doesn't negate the fact that labrador and poodle are dog breeds. The spaniards had a system that classified people by percentages of ancestry, e.g. quadroon, octaroon. Today we have more modern technology and ancestry can be determined though the analysis of genetic markers. The usefulness of race can be (and is) debated. Its existence is hardly debatable.
- devalier 11y ago
  Science is not a democracy, and consensus means little when the peer review and tenure review process is designed to reward conformity rather than truth. Use your own brain. Denying the existence of races is completely absurd. See for instance: http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for-race.html http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for... and https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-iq-f-a-q-f-r-b/#racesocialconstruct https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-i... And lots more reading here: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#race https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#race
  - cactusface 11y ago
    There's a scientific meaning behind the word race - geographically isolated population groups, or more precisely groups that do not interbreed. Humans don't have those, and never have had those. I never said we were homogenous, any nitwit can see that most people in Asia have black hair, and there's no reason to think that only superficial physical characteristics sort geographically. Just that, there aren't distinct races. You know, a middle ground, as proposed by the guy who wrote that first article you linked to, at the end.
- tjradcliffe 11y ago
  Except that no one in ordinary discourse uses "race" in the way you are, which means "species" (the whole not-interbreeding thing is often taken as definitive of "species".) "Race" as it is commonly used means "variety" or "breed", and the claim that there are observable and significant statistical differences between human populations in geographic regions is, one hopes, uncontroversial. Those differences come from different genes, and since we all know that a trivial edit to a single gene can result in a massive change in function, it is reasonable to ask about a wide range of characteristics that have some genetic influence. To claim that "races" in this sense "do not exist" is to come across as incoherent and pedantic at the same time. Whenever anyone has looked at any characteristic that is really significant in society and how it differs across "races" so defined, they have found that the differences are trivial at best, non-existent at worst. This is "controversial" because a bunch of idiots want to project their prejudices onto genes. "Intelligence" is by far the most debatable target for this kind of nonsense because a) it is controversial as to whether or not anything like "g" is an objectively real feature of human beings; b) it is extremely controversial how heritable it is; and c) even if it is real and heritable, our ability to measure it is so poor that it is very difficult to make any claims about population statistics. See... you can actually refute racist nonsense while at the same time acknowledging what everyone knows: varieties of humans exist, and redefining the word "race" so it does not apply to those varieties of humans does not make the fact that varieties of humans exist go away.
  - cactusface 11y ago
    Different races cannot interbreed, but only because they are geographically isolated. Different species cannot interbreed (generally speaking), even if they are not geographically isolated. Humans are not geographically isolated. Geographical barriers have contributed to the creation of population groups, but these are distinct from races in that there is a mechanism for DNA to move between them (somebody takes a trip and makes a baby). Anyway, Wikipedia says in the lead sentence of that article I linked to that simply classifying people into discrete races is scientific racism. "Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."
politicalhn4tw 11y ago
School textbooks also often make the case that Native Americans didn't make good slaves because they were native to the area and just walking away and vanishing was relatively easy for them. That's very different from asserting genetic racial differences were the factor at work.
tptacek 11y ago
I do not accept the premise of this argument, unless we're talking about textbooks from the 1910s.
- emjr 11y ago
  It was stated as fact as late as the early 90's in my own textbooks, and I attended a private school in the NY metro area.

by emjr 11y ago

"Natives did not make good slaves, and so Africans were imported." That alone is so innocuous as to appear in elementary school textbooks. Is this really what the whole row is about?

cactusface 11y ago

No, it's because he said it was due to genetic differences between population groups. This makes him a "true" racist in that he believe there are different races, or sub-species, of homo sapiens (sapiens). There is a scientific consensus that this is not the case, because races only exist if population groups are completely isolated, which humans never have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

andrewchambers 11y ago
I find asserting superiority of one race over another hard to justify, but is it crazy to think there are differences? Dogs are the same species, but people do assign traits like aggression/playfulness to different breeds.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- cactusface 11y ago
  There aren't "races" in the sense of Darwin's finches because there is interbreeding between population groups, that's all.
  - tjradcliffe 11y ago
    Redefining the word "race" so it does not apply to the human varieties does not make the fact of human varieties go away, and so fails to make a counter-argument against racists. "Racism" exists, and saying "race doesn't exist" doesn't change that. All it does is mean that to be consistent you'll have to call it "variety-ism", which is awkward and irrelevant.
    - andrewchambers 11y ago
      Racism is asserting superiority of one group of humans over another, and generalizing without evidence. You could think certain people are genetically better adapted to cold or hot climates. That by itself is not racism, it becomes racism when you say that everyone who cannot stand cold weather is inferior, when in reality, it is totally dependent on circumstances. I think people failing to see the difference stops some honest discussion and people go on a witch hunt. In this case, blocking the person may well be justified however.
      - cactusface 11y ago
        I'm repeating myself here, but per WP, "Scientific racism is [...] alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."
        yarvin9 11y ago
        It seems worth taking this criticism up with the authors of, for example, Risch et al 2005 [0]. From the abstract: "Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity." It seems worth asking how a paper like this got published, as late as 2005. Scientific racism may be even more entrenched than many have feared... [0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/
        cactusface 11y ago
        What do you do with all the interracial children? Please forgive the oxymoron.
        Jando 11y ago
        I don't want to read too far into your comment, but if the intent was similar to: "Interracial children don't fall into classical racial categories and, as such, are proof that racial categories don't exist," that's fallacious. The fact that a lab and poodle can produce a labradoodle doesn't negate the fact that labrador and poodle are dog breeds. The spaniards had a system that classified people by percentages of ancestry, e.g. quadroon, octaroon. Today we have more modern technology and ancestry can be determined though the analysis of genetic markers. The usefulness of race can be (and is) debated. Its existence is hardly debatable.
devalier 11y ago
Science is not a democracy, and consensus means little when the peer review and tenure review process is designed to reward conformity rather than truth. Use your own brain. Denying the existence of races is completely absurd. See for instance: http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for-race.html http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for... and https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-iq-f-a-q-f-r-b/#racesocialconstruct https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-i... And lots more reading here: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#race https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#race
- cactusface 11y ago
  There's a scientific meaning behind the word race - geographically isolated population groups, or more precisely groups that do not interbreed. Humans don't have those, and never have had those. I never said we were homogenous, any nitwit can see that most people in Asia have black hair, and there's no reason to think that only superficial physical characteristics sort geographically. Just that, there aren't distinct races. You know, a middle ground, as proposed by the guy who wrote that first article you linked to, at the end.
tjradcliffe 11y ago
Except that no one in ordinary discourse uses "race" in the way you are, which means "species" (the whole not-interbreeding thing is often taken as definitive of "species".) "Race" as it is commonly used means "variety" or "breed", and the claim that there are observable and significant statistical differences between human populations in geographic regions is, one hopes, uncontroversial. Those differences come from different genes, and since we all know that a trivial edit to a single gene can result in a massive change in function, it is reasonable to ask about a wide range of characteristics that have some genetic influence. To claim that "races" in this sense "do not exist" is to come across as incoherent and pedantic at the same time. Whenever anyone has looked at any characteristic that is really significant in society and how it differs across "races" so defined, they have found that the differences are trivial at best, non-existent at worst. This is "controversial" because a bunch of idiots want to project their prejudices onto genes. "Intelligence" is by far the most debatable target for this kind of nonsense because a) it is controversial as to whether or not anything like "g" is an objectively real feature of human beings; b) it is extremely controversial how heritable it is; and c) even if it is real and heritable, our ability to measure it is so poor that it is very difficult to make any claims about population statistics. See... you can actually refute racist nonsense while at the same time acknowledging what everyone knows: varieties of humans exist, and redefining the word "race" so it does not apply to those varieties of humans does not make the fact that varieties of humans exist go away.
- cactusface 11y ago
  Different races cannot interbreed, but only because they are geographically isolated. Different species cannot interbreed (generally speaking), even if they are not geographically isolated. Humans are not geographically isolated. Geographical barriers have contributed to the creation of population groups, but these are distinct from races in that there is a mechanism for DNA to move between them (somebody takes a trip and makes a baby). Anyway, Wikipedia says in the lead sentence of that article I linked to that simply classifying people into discrete races is scientific racism. "Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."

politicalhn4tw 11y ago

School textbooks also often make the case that Native Americans didn't make good slaves because they were native to the area and just walking away and vanishing was relatively easy for them. That's very different from asserting genetic racial differences were the factor at work.

tptacek 11y ago

I do not accept the premise of this argument, unless we're talking about textbooks from the 1910s.

emjr 11y ago
It was stated as fact as late as the early 90's in my own textbooks, and I attended a private school in the NY metro area.