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User:Tydaj added a picture to the article, which I have removed. The reason why I did this was the caption:
Four races according to the Book of Gates: a Syrian, a Nubian, a Libyan, and an Egyptian. An artistic rendering, based on a mural from the tomb of Seti I.
It's fine to draw attention to the fact that even in ancient cultures people were aware that humans came in many different shapes and colours, and that even ancient cultures were capable of stereotyping different nationalities. But it's wrong, and highly misleading, to call that "race", a concept which the ancient Egyptians would likely not have recognized. I have never seen any evidence that they conceptualized these differences as:
I will not object to putting the picture back in the article, with a different caption. FilipeS 13:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,
Thou settest every man in his place,
Thou suppliest their necessities:
Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.
Their tongues are separate in speech,
And their natures as well;
Their skins are distinguished
I strongly disagree. The picture can just as well be interpreted as an Egyptian caricature of features which they regarded as typical of different ethnicities. An ethnicity is not the same as a race, and there is no proof that the Egyptians thought in terms of race. In fact, there is plenty of archeological evidence that the Egyptians themselves came in many different colours, from pale to very dark, which shows that the picture which represents "the [typical] Egyptian" is no more than an idealization. FilipeS 15:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
That may be so in popular language (hence terms like "the English race" or "the French race"), but I believe anthropologists have a set, stricter definition of "race", which does not coincide with the notion of ethnicity. I will look for a source. FilipeS 14:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it's very difficult to compare ethnic notions from different time periods and cultures. That's why I objected to the caption in the epicure, which uses the modern English word "race", which did not exist in ancient Egyptian. I doubt the original picture even had any caption at all. Labelling that as "race" is arbitrary and anachronistic, as you have rightly noted. FilipeS 17:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The naming of the "Race" article should not be assumed as the correct standard for naming things and articles. An article on "Unidentified flying objects" is acceptable since it does not assume the existence of extraterrestrial ships. Naming an article "Flying saucers," however, creates the impression that there are real things that match that name.
"Fetishising the term "race" would be to hold the term "race" in unreasoning devotion, but I have no feeling of devotion for the term at all.
FelipeS and I are accused of regarding the term "as though it has a true meaning that they determine<" which is pretty much the opposite of what I believe. I think I have said as clearly as I can that the trouble with "race" as a type of category is that there exist a huge number of definitions by which people are assigned to various racial categories. Another way to say that is to explain that "race" is a word that, instead of having "a true meaning," actually has a different meaning for more-or-less everybody who uses the word.
Paul Barlow brings in another kind of begging of the question, another logical error, by asserting without any evidence or analysis that there is indeed a single "semantic field" for the word "race" that "overlaps to varying degrees" some set of "ancient concepts." To do so is to multiply uncertainties. It maps an uncertain, fuzzy, and multitudinous group of present-day concepts all claiming the name "race" in "varying degrees" (of what, suitability?) to an indeterminate number of "ancient concepts." Doing so hypostatizes the murkily defined word "race" as referring to a real thing known by that name, and then it claims that the ancients were looking at this same supposedly empirical reality and giving it names in their own languages.
The responsible way to handle this potentially useful bit of information about ancient thought is to establish how the ancient Egyptians actually categorized human beings, and how they named those categories, and only after it has been made clear what they thought about things in their own terms of reference should we ask in what ways this conceptual scheme was different from and similar to various competing ideas of "race" in our own time. P0M 07:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
The difference between "race" and "ethnicity" (with a reference). FilipeS 23:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
To refute the claim that "race and ethnicity are not clearly distinguished":
“[Races] are populations that differ genetically and may be distinguished phenotypically (i.e. by appearance). Races are not species; they are able to interbreed, and are fertile when they do.” (Eysenck, 1971)
FilipeS 21:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
In the face of this rejection of race by evolutionary scientists, many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word "ethnicity" to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs in shared religion, nationality, or race. Moreover, they understood these shared beliefs to mean that religion, nationality, and race itself are social constructs and have no objective basis in the supernatural or natural realm (Gordon 1964)
The quote aimed to address Paul B's objections, not your comments. FilipeS 20:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Over the past several months many parts of this article were deleted, and there was some reorganization of the article. I then restored what had been deleted, as well as much of the earlier organization. I explained why. The material that had been cute was important and salient, and the organization was superior in that there was less redundency and repetition of similar arguments. I also deleted one section and I explained why. the section I deleted was called "biological view" but it was really not the biological view, it was the psychologist Arthur Jensen's interpretation of certain biological data. Jenson is not an evolutionary scientist or population geneticist and his interpretation of the work of evolutionary scientists is contentious. It is misleading to provide a whole section to his views, and disguise it by calling it "biological view." The restored version (the earlier version I restored) does not delete views. It provides the view of people studying race and intelligence (Jensen) in its own clearly identified section. It also provides much more information on the view of race as lineage (which is the term scientists more often use, not Lucas's prefered term, "ancestry"). Please do not accuse of me deleting without explanation. I have not removed any relevant content, and I have explained my changes. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a big part of it. But also organization. Lucas's organization is: 1 History
2 Human genetic variation
3 Current views across disciplines
vs.
1 History
2 20th- and 21st-Century debates over race
3 Current views across disciplines
first let me note that the second - i.e. original - organization was worked on by many knowledgable people and was stable for at least a couple of years. I do not think the structure of articles is ever sacrosanct, but given these facts one should propose new organization cautiously.
Here is why I think the second organization is superior: First, the themes in Lucas's section two represent parts of approaches that were debated in the 20th century. To have two separate sections, one on 20th century debates and another on genetics, either means a lot of repetition, or utterly inadequate discussion (because, if you do not discuss genetics in 20th century debates, you cannot understand those debates; and if you do not explain the genetics in the context of those debates you will end up violating NPOV since it is those debates that explain what the different povs are and how they are related. Second, it makes sense to distinguish 20th and 21st century debates from earlier debates because it was only in the 20th century the modern natural and social scientific study of race emerged - early debates provide historical context, but 20th century debates are still contemporary. Third, the organization of Lucas's section 2 simply makes no sense to me. Why not call section 2 "Biological interpretations of race" and make "genetics" "physical variation" and "ancestry" subsections? Or why not make section 2 "Ancestry" and then have subsections on how ancestry manifests itself genetically (genotypically) and physically (phenotypicically)? The organization of section 2 bears no relationship to how scientists talk about race, the subsections are not clearly defined, it just doesn't make sense. Forth, the original organization did make more sense. first, it began with a note on scale (which Lucas deleted) which is useful for making sense of why scientists may employ different approaches to race - it need not be that one approach is right and another wrong, but one may be more appropriate at one scale and another, at a different scale. This is true of much science and he should not have cut it. This section 2 then breaks down to clearly distinguishable approaches to race: subspecies, populations instead of races, and the evolutionary approach. Note than genetics and physical variation are covered in all three - no important material was deleted 9only Jensen, who, as I said, is covered in a later section on race and intelligence which is what Jensen's research is actually on). The evolutionary approach covers what Lucas might mean by "ancestry" but far from deleting information it provide much more important information on cladistics and the arguments for and against the lineage view of race. 2.5, the summary, actually summarizes all this. In lucas's version, he keeps the summary but none of what the summary is actually summarizing, which could only confuse people. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
First, you are a hypocrite because your version deleted even more information which you never incorporated into your version. Second, you are at least a little disingenuous: the version I restored indeed included Edwards' view, which you claim was deleted. What was deleted was simply your wording, not the content itself. However, I have added some of your wording. The current version was worked on by many people over a long period of time, and both Guettarda and POM have expressed their support for the established version. If you want to add important content, fine, but that does not justify a wholesale reorganization that makes absolutely no sense, along with your deleting whole sections. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Race is a myth. It has been proven again and again that race is a social construct, yet there is still a debate. There are only six or seven genes out of millions that determine skin, hair and eye color, hair texture, nose shape, etc. Race is a social thing. Muigwithania 01:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations! You have been so completely brainwashed that you can't be brainwashed more. I wonder why people like you will do, when all those "social constructs" from the Third World flooding into Western countries will start to cut your throats. Centrum99 13:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
As someone who wandered around much of the third world with a backpack and thick soles, dependent on the goodness of strangers, and as a white guy living in a nice American city who has never had trouble from Afro-Americans, Mexicans, or anybody buy white people out to prove something to themselves, I am not worried that people from abroad who look different from us would threaten me. If I could walk around Islamic fishing communities where every man carried a kriss and I carried nothing but a billfold full of travelers checks and a passport and be safe, what would it tell us if members of my Islamic/Malay fishing community came to the United States and caused trouble? If my bees were gentle in Nebraska and they got testy when I moved them to Colorado, I would look to environmental factors such as the lack of sufficient floral nectar to keep them fed and undefensive.
Now as for your haplogroups, nobody is or should be surprised that people who are closely related to each other should resemble each others in traits that are not learned. If a tow headed, round eyed, big nosed baby were to be born in an isolated farming community of Taiwanese aborigines, people would talk. We don't need the technological trappings of genetics to understand the basic facts of life that have been clear to people since the dawn of history. We are now clearer how these similarities are transmitted from generation to generation, but that is like understanding why fire burns when you already knew better than to stick your hand in it. But we let apparent uniformity deceive us into thinking that there is no flame that is not hot, that there is no Chinese that is born with curly hair unless a visiting foreign devil has visited the mother.
The "reality" (as philosophers of science see it) is that all propositions, all alleged statements of matters of fact, are social constructs. But some social constructs rest on little or no data, and some social constructs rest on a very great deal of data. Leprechauns have defined characteristics. They are pictured in beer ads and other places around the middle of March. But people can draw them in different ways and nobody can resolve disputes that result because only very well lubricated bigger people have seen them, and by the time they sober up their reports are apt to be a trifle confused. Protons have never been seen, exactly, but they have been measured in terms of their mass, their electrical charge, etc., over and over again. Nobody who has the slightest talent as a gambler would gamble on the result of the next observation contradicting all the earlier observations.
A [race] is another kind of social construct, one that falls in the middle between leprechauns and protons. There is some similarity that gives people reason to group all the aboriginal people of Australia together. At the same time, there are many differences that distinguish sub groups of Australians, sub-sub groups.... and on down to all individuals except pairs of individual twins. So there is something there, but it is not what people make out of it. We construct a unity on the fact of similarity.
The identification of [races] has some utility, but only in statistical terms. If you are white you are more likely to get skin cancer than if you are black. The color of your skin is an inherited trait, but you can't just go out and treat every white person for skin cancer, and you cannot fail to look for the symptoms of skin cancer in black people. If you look at the group you can say, e.g., "There will be three times as many skin cancers in this group as there will be in that group." If you've done your statistical workup right, your results will be very close to your prediction. But you cannot tell anything about the health status of an individual without looking.
If you try to find a "pure race," you may go to some remote place, round up the people, and start examining them. Oh-oh, problem. Everybody else has shovel-shaped incisors except for this woman and her boy. She can't be a member of this race, so we'll remove her from consideration. Everybody has straight, black hair -- except for that man with wavy hair. Throw him and his kids out. What happens is that the purer you get your "pure race," the fewer people it has in it. Finally you are down to yourself and your good twin. Alas, all others have been found wanting in one of the sacred traits of your race.
Alas, poor superman, although Muigwithania said that skin, hair and eye color, hair texture, nose shape, etc. distinguish people, you will find atypical skin colors, atypical hair curl, atypical eye color, etc., in any group, in any "race." And the reasons have to do with the genetic factors that you want to build your defense of [race] on -- Somewhere in history somebody either mutated (creating a "bloodline" of mutants!) or carried his family genes into the local scene from farther away where the genes were common, and those stranger genes have been floating around from generation to generation just waiting for a chance to express themselves. (And of course there are lots of genetic differences that manifest on the inside, so two identical looking Amerinds might have a significant difference in something like alcohol metabolism.) The curly headed trait might have been introduced into remote corner of the world X one, ten, one hundred... generations ago. And that is just the nature of amorous and xenophilic human nature. The worst thing is that once an interloper gets his/her genes into the pool of the local group, the blasted things do not stick together. Some genes go to one grandchild who gets himself killed by kicking a sleeping Cape Buffalo. Some genes go to another grandchild who is the Don Juan of his area and has more children than have ever been credited to any man except Genghis Kahn. Some genes go with great-granddaughter Ann who moves to the mountains where the genes give all her kids great advantages, and with her brother Sven who moves to the sea shore where his children do not thrive. But some genes carried to the sea shore thrive there and flub up in the mountains. The end result is that two important traits from the same immigrant Don Juan end up thriving in two groups of people who look very different from each other.
I understand the article is about race the concept, but I wondered about there not seeming to be any list of the races. I tried looking for an article called "races", but no luck. Really what I was looking for was to see how many white races are said to exist, though. 84.202.202.2 21:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Anonymous, I understand your curiosity, but I can not help. Truth is, this depends on defintion of race. Fact is nobody knows exactly how many races there are, and who qualifies. Many systems of classification have been proposed by such people as Carolus Linnaeus, Johann Blumenbach, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Carleton Coon, but such systems have been found to be largely fraudulent often created with a racist agenda. All modern human beings belong to the same species and subspecies (Homo sapiens sapiens) as opposed to Neanderthals, a different species (Homo neanderthalensis) and Idaltu man/archaic sapiens, a different subspecies (Homo sapiens idaltu). Fact is human racial groups could not be considered taxonomical categories. Unfortunately, it is hard to talk about race, given that racialist people often will enthusiastically propose classification schemes (albeit with a sinister agenda), whereas the people who should talk about race (experts in the field, most of whom renounce racism) are often afraid to.
The original question was about "white races," which is cutting the cheese even more finely than those mentioned above. If "race" is a sort of sub-subspecies, then [races] of white people would be something like a sub-sub-subspecies. The situation with humans is about like the situation with honey bees. You can distinguish between, e.g., the black bees of England and the striped yellow and black bees of Italy -- or at least you could before English beekeepers imported Italian queens because Italians are easier to manage and produce larger crops of honey. If you look at Carniolans and Italians, then the "classical types" of each variety look different and have different behavioral characteristics. But if you read about the bees found in places between the "homelands" of the Italians and the Carniolans you will find descriptions of bees that are said to be Italians but having many of the traits of Carniolans, and vice-versa. The truth is that there are broad hybridization zones between the two "homeland" regions. But if somebody in the middle wanted to declare his/her genetic mixture as the standard of a new "race" of bees, that idenitty would be as valid as either of the other two. Bees don't come labeled by nature except in their own individual genomes.
That being said, there has been lots of work done to try to sort out the general family histories of groups in Europe. The Lapps are linguistically very different from everybody else, and I believe they have some higher percentages of some haplotypes than do other Europeans. So you can wonder where they came from, when they got to Europe, etc. There is a chart on page 268 of Cavalli-Sforza's History and Geography of Human Genes that shows the genetic relations among 26 different groups. Those groups are generally identified by their geographical locations, and from that genetic tree you can see that Lapps are kind of off on their own, that Sardinians are next in line for remoteness, and then they are followed by the Greeks. Generally the rest of the results are pretty much as one would expect, e.g., Germans and Swiss are very close.
Lest anyone take too much comfort from this picture of sub-sub-racial differentiation, take a look at the charts in the rest of the chapter that show how, if you concentrate on one set of characteristics, some geographical area is tessalated by certain bands of genetic similarity, but if you pick some other set of characteristics then the bands on the map look totally different. So Michael and Patrick might both be mugwump Irish, but Patrick might be black Irish and Michael might not. In fact, Michael even might better fit in with the Scots on that one score.
Bottom line, if your ancestors all came from Wales and you want to know what your genetic constitution really is (and not just what it is statistically likely to be), you will have to get your genome analyzed. Beware. You might end up looking more like a Sardinian than whatever you thought you really were. P0M 21:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
A notable racial group is the white race. Its history is well documented white history or [http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/ white history].-- Dark Tea 09:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Although it is clear that their is variation in color among the white racial group. The white racial group is clearly distinct here: white subraces or [http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr1.htm white subraces].-- Dark Tea 10:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
There is no "real definition" of white. It's a fiction. FilipeS 20:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
On race and intelligence, please [2] Slrubenstein | Talk 13:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
We do not pursue truth in this matter. We pursue usefulness. It is more useful to conclude that African Americans are innately equal to other races in intelligence. Therefore, whether they are or aren't, it should be our policy to act as if they are. The reason is as follows: If it is agreed that African Americans are innately less intelligent, then they will have no motivation to try to improve and to try to learn difficult subjects. There will be a feeling of utter hopelessness, which will lead to despair. However, if it is agreed that they are equally intelligent, then they will have some motivation and, even if they fail, the standards can be lowered or tests can be eliminated altogether. In other words, it is more constructive for society to agree by convention that African Americans are of equal intelligence, whether it is strictly true or not. Lestrade 21:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)ArnoldSchwarzneger
For over a century now, the trend in anthropology, biology and more recently in genetics has been for more and more evidence to show up contradicting the notion that there are distinct human races. Human beings are simply both more alike and more diverse than that. "Race" as it is commonly perceived it is a social thing. If the concept of "race" has no objective biological basis, then surely the idea that there may be innate differences in intelligence between different races becomes nonsensical. Our gene pool is too scrambled to allow for that possibility. FilipeS 12:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
See this article definition of "race"... How somebody could claim that there are human subspecies? What that's mean? Is that ranging of human beings? What do you talking about with that claim in definition? -- 80.102.113.62 04:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Over 5 centuries, such claims that there are human subspecies, was excuse for slavery, segregation, exclusion, genocide, extermination. So I call people who maintain this theories to think, what they are talknig about. -- 80.102.113.62 05:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Top note of this article states: This article concerns the term "race" as used in reference to human beings. -- 80.102.113.62 17:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
FelipeS, you misunderstand. To say that racemay be a social group is not the same thing as saying all social groups are races. You are making an elementary error of logic. All apples are fruits; not all fruits are apples. Ethnic groups are one kind of social group, races are(ormay be, according tosome) another kind of social group. As to your suggestion that we have already seen that races are not social groups, as anonymous user 80 points out, we editors do not put our own views in the article. Many verifiable sources (works by anthropologists and sociologists most prominently) argue that races are social constructions and social groups, and that when people self-identify asmembersof a race they are identifying with a social group. It doesn't matter whether you think this is true or not. What matters is that it is a verifiable view that must be represented in the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I understand your point about race as popularly understood. But NPOV requires that we include other views, not just the popular view. One important view is that race is a social group and that view must be included, and clearly stated. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
What are you talking about? Your comment has nothing to do with mine. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Eric Wolf, Marvin Harris, and virtually any anthropologist I know of writing about race in the Americas, also Ann Stoler and people writing about race in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. I think most sociologists also view race as a social group. And your 11:36 comment by the way did not broach this issue of race as social group. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
FelipeS, you are talking nonsense. Also, this is the secont time you put words in my mouth. Please stop misrepresenting me. I never ever ever said race is a synonym for ethnicity. I even explained this to you in my 12:13, 10 February 2007 posting. This talk page would work better if you read the comments you purport to be responding to. And yes, when you reject any POV that does not coincide with your own, of course you are a common POV-pusher. Nothing else. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Neoracist agenca? So you think social scientists who study fascism are therefore fascists? Are social scientists who study imperialism imperialists? Do you think geologists are rocks? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed in some WP articles they talk about the "XXXian people". "People" can mean "persons" but that is obviously not what they mean - they mean "race" (or "ethnicity", a synonym). So I'm making it my mission to replace "XXXian people" wherever it occurs with "XXXian race". This will get me into disputes with Wikicrats who are promoting their ethno/racial "Peoples". Fourtildas 04:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be stated explicitly at the beginning that races have common ancestry? As it stands, according to the first paragraph, bald people or any self-identified group could be a race. It should say up front that the article is about the modern meaning, "one of the major divisions of mankind", and not about the many other usages of the word "race" you will find in a dictionary, such as "tribe, nation, or people". Presumably the article is about that particular concept, not all concepts described by "race". Also, my English teacher would red-pencil "The term race tries ...". 24.64.165.176 04:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I deleted a few quotes that SecurID put in the article for two reasons: first, a section of an article should not just consist of a selection of quotes - that is not how to write an article. Second, this article has a structure and I see no reason to create a new section called "arguments against race" as if there are just two sides to an argument, when the article already provides much more sophisticated coverage of debates concerning race. Third, the views expressed in those quotes are already in the article, in appropriate sections. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
For the record, these are here. Something here may find their way into an article needing editing. For what its worth.
Dr. Sylvia Spengler, U.C. Berkeley Genetics
Trying to mix genetics with race is, to my mind, inappropriate; cannot be done...Race is something we do to each other; it has nothing to do with what our DNA does to us. [1]
Eric Lander, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Lab, Whitehead Institute
Any two humans on this planet are more than 99.9 percent identical at the molecular level. Racial and ethnic differences are all indeed only skin deep. [2]
J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer Celera Genomics Corp.
The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis. In the five Celera genomes there is no way to tell one ethnicity from another. Society and medicine treats us all as members of populations, whereas as individuals we are all unique and population statistics do not apply. No serious scholar in this field thinks that race is a scientific concept. It just is not. [3]
American Anthropological Association
Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation lies within so-called racial groups. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. [4]
Now to check that I'm not being buffaloed. Fr ed 16:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
SecurID, I think you are acting in good faith but you are wrong. first of all, the people you quote are simply not the scientists who established the prevailing arguments against the validity of race as a biological concept. The article already refers, explicitly, to the actual scientists who did the actual research. Second, you are simply wrong that the article buries the view that many scientists see race as a social construct: the introduction makes this explicit as does section 2.3. Third, you ask for a specific section arguing against race as a biological concept and it already exists - section 2.4.4. finally, your edit - aside from simply being atrocious style - is politically foolhardy. If you add another (redundant, superfluous) section stating race is not a biological concept, you are just inviting someone else to add another section countering those arguments. The fact is, the article already is accurate and complies with NPOV. But maybe you are not acting in good faith. maybe you want to turn a well-crafted and properly sourced article into a soap-box. Wikipedia is not a soap-box for any point of view and if you try to turn this article into a soap box for your own POV you are only going to invite and legitimize people who disagree with you doing the same and using this article as a soap-box for the view that race is a valid biological view. The proper thing to do is not use Wikipedia as a soap-box. By the way, I think your idea of summarizing arguments is a good idea, but you need to understand that in science (biological or social) an "argument" is not an assertion of a view (which is all your quotes do) but an explanation of reasons (which this article provides, explicitly) Slrubenstein | Talk 17:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I am not saying the article is perfect (Manus's recent edits make sense to me). Anyway, my advice about a summary of arguments linked article is to start with the arguments that are already in the article ... Slrubenstein | Talk 17:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Sub-(sub-)Section 2.4.4 could become a section. This view is verifiably predominant, well supported by evidence, demonstrably unifying, and has the added virtue of being true. Fr ed 19:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
(Copied from my user talk page)
Just so you know what I meant: if you add a section called "arguments against race as a biological concept" or however you word it, I assure you that womeone will - within a few weeks or months - add a section called "arguments for ..." That said, I would not have cut what you added had I not sincerely thought that the points had already been made in the article, citing more important authorities (specifically, Boas, Montagu, Wilson and Brown, Brace, Livingston, Ehrlich and Holm, and Lewontin - these are the researchers who actually demonstrated the meaningless of race). Also, the introduction has three paragraphs and the first two stress that most scientists view race as a social construct - the third paragraph states that some scientists continue to believe it is biologically valid, which is true. I don't see how the introduction is biased in favor of race as biologically real. Also, while it is true that the section on the argument for race as lineage (the only meaningful scientific/biological use of race left) is a little longer than the section on the argument against race as lineage, that is because the argument against is so simple and straightforward - in this case, length of the section does not in my opinion indicate bias. The section on the argument against just does not need to be any longer. Finally, about a third of the article is specifically on race as a social construct. I just do not see how anyone can think that the view that race is biological is invalid and that we must view race as a social construct is in anyway downplayed in the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your note on my talk page. You are right that the article mentions the meaningless of race, but I still disagree with you that it's given equal weight. While researchers like Boas (1912), Montagu (1941), Wilson and Brown (1953), Livingston (1962), Ehrlich and Holm (1964) are already included, they seem to be outdated by the modern genetic studies mentioned. That's why I would like to include the findings of recent researchers and studies which second their early research and the researchers I cited are indeed authorities (fringe researchers are not given a chance to announce their findings for White House press releases). Given the fact that most of the article space is used to eleborate on all the different racial theories people came up with in course of time, illustrated with several detailed illustrations about race lineages, genetic clusters, DNA clusters, and so on, and then, additionally, provides a section which summarizes these already lengthy discussions, it's only fair to include at least one section which summarizes the opposing opinions of early as well as recent researchers. I don't want to act against consensus, that's why I will not edit the article before we reached one and would appreciate it if we could have this discussion on the articles talk page so that other editors have a chance to voice their opinions on that matter as well. SecurID 16:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for bring the discussion back here, SecurID. Has anyone suggested a history of racial theory or similar. This would put most of the content here in a suitable context. The end user is unlikely to get the information she is looking for, in the few minutes most readers take with an article. Finer detail of information can be found by an simply structured TOC, or linking to the pernicious theories of discredited 'thinkers'. Anyway, - Fr ed 17:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Racial theory (history) or Race (historical definitions)?. Anyway, here is a bit more history:
The term race is used in a wide variety of contexts, with related but often distinct meanings. Its use is often controversial, largely because of the political and sociological implications of different definitions, but also because of disagreements over such issues as whether humans can be meaningfully divided into multiple races.
This is from a fairly good source. The last line might need a little work. Cheers, - Fr ed 08:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
In response to recent edits, I have a request and a point. Request: if someone knows of more recent surveys of biologists, can they please provide the source, the sample size (and if appropriate sampling methods) and actual figures? Point: biologists study all sorts of things. When it comes to this article, I think what matters is the opinion of biologists who study human beings, especially human evolution and genetic variation. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't. First, let's note that the article already has a link to the AAA statement. Second, the AAA statement is a statement passed by a professional organization meaning that at an annual convention, at the business meeting, a majority of people voted for the resolution - this can be as small a number as 100 out of 5,000. To be clear: I believe that the AAA statement reflects the mainstream view of anthropologists, but let's be honest, it is not a survey and cannot act as a surrugate for a survey. Third, the AAA is an organization of anthropologists, not biologists. The AAA does include biological anthropologists and I doubt that the statement says anything that most biological anthropologists would reject. However, the vast majority of biological anthropologists do not attend annual AAA meetings and may not have been involved in drafting or voting on the statement (most go to AAPA meetings). The AAA statement at best reflects the views of all anthropologists, including biological anthropologists but also cultural anthropologists, linguists, and archeologists. It definitely does not represent the views of biologists. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
An anon user has replaced comments that look like this:
with comments that look like this:
This is a long comment that does not extend all the way to the right margin. It is indented again at the left margin and so on down the page on and on and on and onand on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Now it is right-indented too, as though it were a block quote in the old style.
I originally reverted all changes because the ones I noticed first were short quotations (?) that did not look like real quotations, and because on my current computer screen the type is so small that I missed the left margin colon in the originals. Later I realized my mistake, so I have replaces most of those edits. Personally, I don't like the new style. The block quote style looks less jarring to me, so I left most of the places that had used that format as they were. (There was one place in close proximity to one of the new style quotations that I had to change because otherwise it would look too strange.
I don't care which format is used, but I thought I'd better let everyone know what is going on. This is the first time I've seen this new format for block quotations. P0M 02:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
=== Race and genocide ===
The blindingly clear (though historically revisionist) obfucscations of one of the most important (and historically commonly applied) applications of racial classifications has been genocidal. For example, the first concentration camps were made in Africa (during the Boer war), the killing of Central Asians by Soviet Russians and also the Vietnam War have all relied upon racism and racial motivations to actively induce and motivate military policies designed to kill large numbers of people.
I removed this new addition to the article for several reasons:
I do not want to discourage the writer, nor do I want to simply delete the new content, so here it is. P0M 23:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
this article is really long SkyScrapers 15:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The current trend toward equating nationality as race has a very good useful rationale. If Asians, Negroes, and Caucasians are considered to be racially different, then the distinction between them is too definite. They each feel extremely alienated from the others, as though they were almost different species. However, if racial differences are simply mere differences in nationality, then the distinction is not as severe, and some kind of harmony is more of a possibility. Lestrade 22:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
How can a discussion of race be completely void of almost any real academic rigor? Reading this article I feel like I am sitting in an introductory Anthropology class listening to people discuss the topic without reading the texts. What about biological affinity? What about Dr. Stanley Rhine? If there were not biological differences in people how can physical anthropologists correctly assign "race" or biological affinity to skulls and skeletons with reproducible results? This is an emotional topic for many people, but I ask that we set aside our differences and approach this from a purely academic standpoint. Please provide refs and clearly identify scientific theory from law. Cheers Rtb677 01:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Too many liberal PC hippies on here.
Manic Hispanic
01:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with "liberal", "pc", or "hippie". There is value to the study of biological differences between peoples. This information has medical value, forensic value, and academic value. People are arguing here from either a political view and trying to make the science fit. We should try to achieve a degree of objectivity. Granted I disagree with
Franz Boas, I don't think true objectivity is achievable.
Rtb677
02:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Why does this article claim that the existence of so called clusters is indicative of distinct lineages? This is simply untrue, indeed if distinct lineages did exist then there would be no need to do clustering analyses. The very fact that so many alleles are held in common by so many populations is the reason why clustering experiments are done. It is also clear form these data from Rosenberg that most populations actually belong to multiple clusters, even if the vast majority of populations have majority membership of one cluster. These data from Rosenberg et al (2002) should not be used as they have been challenged by Serre and Pääbo (2004). It is better to use Rosenberg et al. (2005) paper because it addresses the issues that Serre and Pääbo address. This 2005 paper alos uses a great deal more alleles, giving their results greater resolution. A quick look at their data shows that when their study design is altered their results are far less unequivocal, with much more membership of multiple clusters for individuals in the various populations. It is therefore apparent that the vast majority of individual people within each population have a membership of multiple clusters, so how can these be lineages? This indicates that these clusters are far far from distinct lineages. Alun 09:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
" Race and multilocus allele clusters" Muntuwandi 03:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
This article needs some dumbing down. Too much technical jargon Muntuwandi 03:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Ramdrake is right - while I agree that ease of communication is important, let's first look at ways to improve the readability without losing information. This has been a controversial article in the past - maintaining balance is important. There's also a lot of useful information that I would not like to see lost. Most importantly - major changes need to be discussed. Guettarda 16:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)#
To Guettarada maintaining ballance is important. One of the problems with certain articles on Wikipedia is that sometimes certain points of view are given undue weight. In this article the point of view that "some geneticists" think that "self identified race/ethnicity" is a useful "classification" is somehow used to imply that these geneticists are supporting the concept of biological race. But the fact is that self identified race/ethnicity is obviously a social construct in itself. Indeed the whole section from the introduction :
Other scientists however, have argued that this position is motivated more by political than scientific reasons. [4] Still others argue that categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful, that these categories correspond to clusters inferred from multilocus genetic data, and that this statistical correspondence, not necessarily a proven cause and effect, implies that genetic factors somehow contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation among groups.
Is quite meaningless. For example it claims that "this position is politically motivated", but what "position" is it refering to exactly? Do they mean the position that genotypic and phenotypic variation is best understood in terms of populations and clines? If so this is simply untrue, the reason scientists think that genes and physical differences are best understood in terms of clines is because they have been measured exhaustively, and the idea that these characteristics can represent discrete lineages has been comprehensively disproven. So this very first sentence is totally inclrrect. It is not even properly cited, a book is given for the citation!!! Are we to read the whole book to check this citation? To cite this properly we need a page number, otherwise it remains uncited. And what does categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful mean? It's "pure frontier gibberish" as far as I can see, it seems to be saying exactly the same thing as the previous paragraph which says "human genotypic and phenotypic variation in terms of populations and clines instead." That is the fact that "categories of self defined race/ancestry (itself a social construct) or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful" does not preclude these "categories" from representing specific regions on the semi-discontinuous distribution of phentoypes and genotypes. And what does this mean "genetic factors somehow contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation among groups" what is "unexplained phenotypic variation"? when it's at home? Human physical and genetic variation is geographically distributed, this is well known, and it is obvious that different genes occur at different frequencies in different populations (though it is only a tiny minority of genes that actually vary on an inter-population level, most variation occurs within group). But here's the rub, this article seems to be taking the view that any sort of evidence for between group variation is de facto proof of the validity of "race" as a biological construct. To be blunt this is simply nonsense. Furthermore the article gives undue weight to this sort of argument, the idea of neutrality does not mean that we need to be even handed. It is obvious to any biologist that the idea of human "biological races" is a nonsense, and no biologists would claim that there is evidence for such categories. Being able to identify the continental origins of an individuals ancestors based on their genetics is not proof that "race" is a biological concept, it is simply proof that certain genes are more likely to occur in some parts of the world than others. Race as a biological construct would involve belief in the multiregional hypothesis because this is the only hypothesis that supports the idea of discrete non-overlöapping human population lineages, but no one believes this hypothesis any more, because there is no evidence for it. When biomedical researchers talk about "race" they are discussing medical research, but the medical concept of "race" is a social concept and includes health factors associated with "race" that have nothing to do with biology or genetics. Indeed to say that self defined race/ethnicity correlates with genetic "clusters" can hardly be a shocking revelation, it's analogous to saying that an African American can be genetically shown to have African ancestors, well I don't really think we need genetic tests to tell us that. In short this article gives undue weight to certain points of view thatare just not supported, even by the sources that cite them. This sort of distortion is totally unencyclopaedic. Alun 17:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Multiple valid and verifiable views. Implying that proven falsehoods are true, or reasonable, is not kosher. FilipeS 17:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Seldin's original data It's clear form these maps that when the "clustering" data are displayed geographically that these so called "clusters" are broadly geographically distributed, and represent genetic clines, with geographically localised maxima, they are not discrete population clusters. Show me a scientist who would argue that these clusters are discrete populations, because that's what the introduction of the article seems to be saying. I plan to produce similar maps for the 2005 Rosenberg data that are shown above in this talk page, these are also obviously clinal, observe the number of individuals who belong to multiple clusters. Alun 19:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Anthropologists long ago discovered that humans’ physical traits vary gradually, with groups that are close geographic neighbors being more similar than groups that are geographically separated. This pattern of variation, known as clinal variation, is also observed for many alleles that vary from one human group to another. Another observation is that traits or alleles that vary from one group to another do not vary at the same rate. This pattern is referred to as nonconcordant variation. Because the variation of physical traits is clinal and non-concordant, anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that the more traits and the more human groups they measured, the fewer discrete differences they observed among races and the more categories they had to create to classify human beings. The number of races observed expanded to the 30s and 50s, and eventually anthropologists concluded that there were no discrete races (Marks, 2002). Twentieth and 21st century biomedical researchers have discovered this same feature when evaluating human variation at the level of alleles and allele frequencies. Nature has not created four or five distinct, nonoverlapping genetic groups of people.
The human species possesses remarkably little genetic variation when compared with other organisms. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), close primate relatives to humans, possess approximately four times as much within-species genetic variation as do humans (Bamshad, Wooding, Salisbury, & Stephens, 2004; Kittles & Weiss, 2003). The relative lack of variability among humans can be observed when researchers measure genetic variation between two individuals or genetic variation between two human groups. Any two unrelated persons, chosen at random from across the globe, are 99.9% identical in their nucleotide sequences (nucleotides are the four famous DNA building blocks—cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine). That is, their genomes are 99.9% the same. Humans’ comparative genetic similarity can be explained by the fact that they are a young species, one that migrated out of Africa relatively recently in evolutionary terms and expanded rapidly to populate the globe (Kittles & Weiss, 2003; Olson, 2002).
This text does not represent a point of view so much as the academic orthodoxy, but in the article this orthodox point of view is given very little space in favour of sensationalist and distorted interpretations of the data that appear to be something approaching OR. But the quote above represents both orthodox thinking and the observed and measured distribution of diversity. This is not an argument of equals as the article tries to imply. It is an argument between science on the one hand and a few wingnut racists on the other who will hold on to their politically motivated racialist point of view however much scince disproved the existence of "race" as a biological construct. So we should be basically saying that biological races do not exist, because that's what science tells us, but also that a tiny minority of people still want to hold on to the belief that they do exist. Then the article can concentrate on discussing socially constructed concepts of race, which is what "biological races" are anyway. Alun 06:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.....The geographic pattern of genetic variation within this array is complex, and presents no major discontinuity. Humanity cannot be classified into discrete geographic categories with absolute boundaries. Furthermore, the complexities of human history make it difficult to determine the position of certain groups in classifications. Multiplying subcategories cannot correct the inadequacies of these classifications....Generally, the traits used to characterize a population are either independently inherited or show only varying degrees of association with one another within each population. Therefore, the combination of these traits in an individual very commonly deviates from the average combination in the population. This fact renders untenable the idea of discrete races made up chiefly of typical representatives.....Partly as a result of gene flow, the hereditary characteristics of human populations are in a state of perpetual flux. Distinctive local populations are continually coming into and passing out of existence....There is no necessary concordance between biological characteristics and culturally defined groups. On every continent, there are diverse populations that differ in language, economy, and culture. There is no national, religious, linguistic or cultural group or economic class that constitutes a race....Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations. [6]
You completely missed the point, and you repeatedly miss the point. This is not an issue about the correctness of any claims about the distribution or frequency of genes, or about clines. If you reply to me by insisting that your view of genetics (or clines) is correct and Rushton's is false, you will only prove once again that you miss the point. If you reply to me with any argument about genetics or race, you will only prove once again that you miss the point. The point is that Wikipedia does not include the views of editors, especially not views about what is correct or incorrect, right or wrong, true or false; Wikipedia is committed to including all significant views, including and especially ones we do not agree with. If you think I am idolizing Rushton you are even more mistaken because it means you do not understand the previous sentence. The article does not present Rushton as if his view represents a scientific consensus, it simply presents his view. You seem to think that simply to present his view is to argue that his view is the consensus - that is just silly. You seem to think that simply to present his view is to make a judgement that it is as valid as the majority view. But that argument of yours only once again proves that you miss the point since Wikipedia does not judge the correctness of views and wikipedia policy simply doe snot allow you to let your judgement of the correctness of a view influence edits to an article. If it does, you are violating Wikipedia policy and your edits will be reverted. If you want to contribute to articles, comply with policies. If all you want to do is express yourself, go start a blog. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
(1) Why is Rushton a matter of discussion? Whether he's right or wrong, his contributions are relatively minor to this overall topic. (2) Settle down folks. I think there's a lot of talking past one another. Based on my very cursory reading, the distinctions that Alun is trying to draw are appropriate -- a "distinct lineage" is not necessarily the same thing as a "distinct population". There are enough subtle distinctions in this topic to be a challenge of the analytic philosophy variety -- some balance will need to be made between the presentation of a historical account of changing views and the diversity and subtlety of contemporary views. (3) but, otoh, an analytic philosopher can prove that the "gene" is not a rigorously valid concept, so care is need to not allow the distinctions drawn by one discipline to over-ride the language used by others. -- W.R.N. 08:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I remember P0M, and I never saw him say anything remotely like that. You guys sure seem to have a tendency to misreport the facts. FilipeS 08:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
He was a tad philosophical, but he also made some good points. FilipeS 09:08, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
You can spin it any way you like. You and your buddies have been giving undue weight to out-on-the-fringe-bordering-on-crackpot minority views. FilipeS 12:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
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User:Tydaj added a picture to the article, which I have removed. The reason why I did this was the caption:
Four races according to the Book of Gates: a Syrian, a Nubian, a Libyan, and an Egyptian. An artistic rendering, based on a mural from the tomb of Seti I.
It's fine to draw attention to the fact that even in ancient cultures people were aware that humans came in many different shapes and colours, and that even ancient cultures were capable of stereotyping different nationalities. But it's wrong, and highly misleading, to call that "race", a concept which the ancient Egyptians would likely not have recognized. I have never seen any evidence that they conceptualized these differences as:
I will not object to putting the picture back in the article, with a different caption. FilipeS 13:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,
Thou settest every man in his place,
Thou suppliest their necessities:
Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.
Their tongues are separate in speech,
And their natures as well;
Their skins are distinguished
I strongly disagree. The picture can just as well be interpreted as an Egyptian caricature of features which they regarded as typical of different ethnicities. An ethnicity is not the same as a race, and there is no proof that the Egyptians thought in terms of race. In fact, there is plenty of archeological evidence that the Egyptians themselves came in many different colours, from pale to very dark, which shows that the picture which represents "the [typical] Egyptian" is no more than an idealization. FilipeS 15:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
That may be so in popular language (hence terms like "the English race" or "the French race"), but I believe anthropologists have a set, stricter definition of "race", which does not coincide with the notion of ethnicity. I will look for a source. FilipeS 14:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it's very difficult to compare ethnic notions from different time periods and cultures. That's why I objected to the caption in the epicure, which uses the modern English word "race", which did not exist in ancient Egyptian. I doubt the original picture even had any caption at all. Labelling that as "race" is arbitrary and anachronistic, as you have rightly noted. FilipeS 17:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The naming of the "Race" article should not be assumed as the correct standard for naming things and articles. An article on "Unidentified flying objects" is acceptable since it does not assume the existence of extraterrestrial ships. Naming an article "Flying saucers," however, creates the impression that there are real things that match that name.
"Fetishising the term "race" would be to hold the term "race" in unreasoning devotion, but I have no feeling of devotion for the term at all.
FelipeS and I are accused of regarding the term "as though it has a true meaning that they determine<" which is pretty much the opposite of what I believe. I think I have said as clearly as I can that the trouble with "race" as a type of category is that there exist a huge number of definitions by which people are assigned to various racial categories. Another way to say that is to explain that "race" is a word that, instead of having "a true meaning," actually has a different meaning for more-or-less everybody who uses the word.
Paul Barlow brings in another kind of begging of the question, another logical error, by asserting without any evidence or analysis that there is indeed a single "semantic field" for the word "race" that "overlaps to varying degrees" some set of "ancient concepts." To do so is to multiply uncertainties. It maps an uncertain, fuzzy, and multitudinous group of present-day concepts all claiming the name "race" in "varying degrees" (of what, suitability?) to an indeterminate number of "ancient concepts." Doing so hypostatizes the murkily defined word "race" as referring to a real thing known by that name, and then it claims that the ancients were looking at this same supposedly empirical reality and giving it names in their own languages.
The responsible way to handle this potentially useful bit of information about ancient thought is to establish how the ancient Egyptians actually categorized human beings, and how they named those categories, and only after it has been made clear what they thought about things in their own terms of reference should we ask in what ways this conceptual scheme was different from and similar to various competing ideas of "race" in our own time. P0M 07:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
The difference between "race" and "ethnicity" (with a reference). FilipeS 23:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
To refute the claim that "race and ethnicity are not clearly distinguished":
“[Races] are populations that differ genetically and may be distinguished phenotypically (i.e. by appearance). Races are not species; they are able to interbreed, and are fertile when they do.” (Eysenck, 1971)
FilipeS 21:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
In the face of this rejection of race by evolutionary scientists, many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word "ethnicity" to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs in shared religion, nationality, or race. Moreover, they understood these shared beliefs to mean that religion, nationality, and race itself are social constructs and have no objective basis in the supernatural or natural realm (Gordon 1964)
The quote aimed to address Paul B's objections, not your comments. FilipeS 20:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Over the past several months many parts of this article were deleted, and there was some reorganization of the article. I then restored what had been deleted, as well as much of the earlier organization. I explained why. The material that had been cute was important and salient, and the organization was superior in that there was less redundency and repetition of similar arguments. I also deleted one section and I explained why. the section I deleted was called "biological view" but it was really not the biological view, it was the psychologist Arthur Jensen's interpretation of certain biological data. Jenson is not an evolutionary scientist or population geneticist and his interpretation of the work of evolutionary scientists is contentious. It is misleading to provide a whole section to his views, and disguise it by calling it "biological view." The restored version (the earlier version I restored) does not delete views. It provides the view of people studying race and intelligence (Jensen) in its own clearly identified section. It also provides much more information on the view of race as lineage (which is the term scientists more often use, not Lucas's prefered term, "ancestry"). Please do not accuse of me deleting without explanation. I have not removed any relevant content, and I have explained my changes. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a big part of it. But also organization. Lucas's organization is: 1 History
2 Human genetic variation
3 Current views across disciplines
vs.
1 History
2 20th- and 21st-Century debates over race
3 Current views across disciplines
first let me note that the second - i.e. original - organization was worked on by many knowledgable people and was stable for at least a couple of years. I do not think the structure of articles is ever sacrosanct, but given these facts one should propose new organization cautiously.
Here is why I think the second organization is superior: First, the themes in Lucas's section two represent parts of approaches that were debated in the 20th century. To have two separate sections, one on 20th century debates and another on genetics, either means a lot of repetition, or utterly inadequate discussion (because, if you do not discuss genetics in 20th century debates, you cannot understand those debates; and if you do not explain the genetics in the context of those debates you will end up violating NPOV since it is those debates that explain what the different povs are and how they are related. Second, it makes sense to distinguish 20th and 21st century debates from earlier debates because it was only in the 20th century the modern natural and social scientific study of race emerged - early debates provide historical context, but 20th century debates are still contemporary. Third, the organization of Lucas's section 2 simply makes no sense to me. Why not call section 2 "Biological interpretations of race" and make "genetics" "physical variation" and "ancestry" subsections? Or why not make section 2 "Ancestry" and then have subsections on how ancestry manifests itself genetically (genotypically) and physically (phenotypicically)? The organization of section 2 bears no relationship to how scientists talk about race, the subsections are not clearly defined, it just doesn't make sense. Forth, the original organization did make more sense. first, it began with a note on scale (which Lucas deleted) which is useful for making sense of why scientists may employ different approaches to race - it need not be that one approach is right and another wrong, but one may be more appropriate at one scale and another, at a different scale. This is true of much science and he should not have cut it. This section 2 then breaks down to clearly distinguishable approaches to race: subspecies, populations instead of races, and the evolutionary approach. Note than genetics and physical variation are covered in all three - no important material was deleted 9only Jensen, who, as I said, is covered in a later section on race and intelligence which is what Jensen's research is actually on). The evolutionary approach covers what Lucas might mean by "ancestry" but far from deleting information it provide much more important information on cladistics and the arguments for and against the lineage view of race. 2.5, the summary, actually summarizes all this. In lucas's version, he keeps the summary but none of what the summary is actually summarizing, which could only confuse people. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
First, you are a hypocrite because your version deleted even more information which you never incorporated into your version. Second, you are at least a little disingenuous: the version I restored indeed included Edwards' view, which you claim was deleted. What was deleted was simply your wording, not the content itself. However, I have added some of your wording. The current version was worked on by many people over a long period of time, and both Guettarda and POM have expressed their support for the established version. If you want to add important content, fine, but that does not justify a wholesale reorganization that makes absolutely no sense, along with your deleting whole sections. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Race is a myth. It has been proven again and again that race is a social construct, yet there is still a debate. There are only six or seven genes out of millions that determine skin, hair and eye color, hair texture, nose shape, etc. Race is a social thing. Muigwithania 01:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations! You have been so completely brainwashed that you can't be brainwashed more. I wonder why people like you will do, when all those "social constructs" from the Third World flooding into Western countries will start to cut your throats. Centrum99 13:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
As someone who wandered around much of the third world with a backpack and thick soles, dependent on the goodness of strangers, and as a white guy living in a nice American city who has never had trouble from Afro-Americans, Mexicans, or anybody buy white people out to prove something to themselves, I am not worried that people from abroad who look different from us would threaten me. If I could walk around Islamic fishing communities where every man carried a kriss and I carried nothing but a billfold full of travelers checks and a passport and be safe, what would it tell us if members of my Islamic/Malay fishing community came to the United States and caused trouble? If my bees were gentle in Nebraska and they got testy when I moved them to Colorado, I would look to environmental factors such as the lack of sufficient floral nectar to keep them fed and undefensive.
Now as for your haplogroups, nobody is or should be surprised that people who are closely related to each other should resemble each others in traits that are not learned. If a tow headed, round eyed, big nosed baby were to be born in an isolated farming community of Taiwanese aborigines, people would talk. We don't need the technological trappings of genetics to understand the basic facts of life that have been clear to people since the dawn of history. We are now clearer how these similarities are transmitted from generation to generation, but that is like understanding why fire burns when you already knew better than to stick your hand in it. But we let apparent uniformity deceive us into thinking that there is no flame that is not hot, that there is no Chinese that is born with curly hair unless a visiting foreign devil has visited the mother.
The "reality" (as philosophers of science see it) is that all propositions, all alleged statements of matters of fact, are social constructs. But some social constructs rest on little or no data, and some social constructs rest on a very great deal of data. Leprechauns have defined characteristics. They are pictured in beer ads and other places around the middle of March. But people can draw them in different ways and nobody can resolve disputes that result because only very well lubricated bigger people have seen them, and by the time they sober up their reports are apt to be a trifle confused. Protons have never been seen, exactly, but they have been measured in terms of their mass, their electrical charge, etc., over and over again. Nobody who has the slightest talent as a gambler would gamble on the result of the next observation contradicting all the earlier observations.
A [race] is another kind of social construct, one that falls in the middle between leprechauns and protons. There is some similarity that gives people reason to group all the aboriginal people of Australia together. At the same time, there are many differences that distinguish sub groups of Australians, sub-sub groups.... and on down to all individuals except pairs of individual twins. So there is something there, but it is not what people make out of it. We construct a unity on the fact of similarity.
The identification of [races] has some utility, but only in statistical terms. If you are white you are more likely to get skin cancer than if you are black. The color of your skin is an inherited trait, but you can't just go out and treat every white person for skin cancer, and you cannot fail to look for the symptoms of skin cancer in black people. If you look at the group you can say, e.g., "There will be three times as many skin cancers in this group as there will be in that group." If you've done your statistical workup right, your results will be very close to your prediction. But you cannot tell anything about the health status of an individual without looking.
If you try to find a "pure race," you may go to some remote place, round up the people, and start examining them. Oh-oh, problem. Everybody else has shovel-shaped incisors except for this woman and her boy. She can't be a member of this race, so we'll remove her from consideration. Everybody has straight, black hair -- except for that man with wavy hair. Throw him and his kids out. What happens is that the purer you get your "pure race," the fewer people it has in it. Finally you are down to yourself and your good twin. Alas, all others have been found wanting in one of the sacred traits of your race.
Alas, poor superman, although Muigwithania said that skin, hair and eye color, hair texture, nose shape, etc. distinguish people, you will find atypical skin colors, atypical hair curl, atypical eye color, etc., in any group, in any "race." And the reasons have to do with the genetic factors that you want to build your defense of [race] on -- Somewhere in history somebody either mutated (creating a "bloodline" of mutants!) or carried his family genes into the local scene from farther away where the genes were common, and those stranger genes have been floating around from generation to generation just waiting for a chance to express themselves. (And of course there are lots of genetic differences that manifest on the inside, so two identical looking Amerinds might have a significant difference in something like alcohol metabolism.) The curly headed trait might have been introduced into remote corner of the world X one, ten, one hundred... generations ago. And that is just the nature of amorous and xenophilic human nature. The worst thing is that once an interloper gets his/her genes into the pool of the local group, the blasted things do not stick together. Some genes go to one grandchild who gets himself killed by kicking a sleeping Cape Buffalo. Some genes go to another grandchild who is the Don Juan of his area and has more children than have ever been credited to any man except Genghis Kahn. Some genes go with great-granddaughter Ann who moves to the mountains where the genes give all her kids great advantages, and with her brother Sven who moves to the sea shore where his children do not thrive. But some genes carried to the sea shore thrive there and flub up in the mountains. The end result is that two important traits from the same immigrant Don Juan end up thriving in two groups of people who look very different from each other.
I understand the article is about race the concept, but I wondered about there not seeming to be any list of the races. I tried looking for an article called "races", but no luck. Really what I was looking for was to see how many white races are said to exist, though. 84.202.202.2 21:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Anonymous, I understand your curiosity, but I can not help. Truth is, this depends on defintion of race. Fact is nobody knows exactly how many races there are, and who qualifies. Many systems of classification have been proposed by such people as Carolus Linnaeus, Johann Blumenbach, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Carleton Coon, but such systems have been found to be largely fraudulent often created with a racist agenda. All modern human beings belong to the same species and subspecies (Homo sapiens sapiens) as opposed to Neanderthals, a different species (Homo neanderthalensis) and Idaltu man/archaic sapiens, a different subspecies (Homo sapiens idaltu). Fact is human racial groups could not be considered taxonomical categories. Unfortunately, it is hard to talk about race, given that racialist people often will enthusiastically propose classification schemes (albeit with a sinister agenda), whereas the people who should talk about race (experts in the field, most of whom renounce racism) are often afraid to.
The original question was about "white races," which is cutting the cheese even more finely than those mentioned above. If "race" is a sort of sub-subspecies, then [races] of white people would be something like a sub-sub-subspecies. The situation with humans is about like the situation with honey bees. You can distinguish between, e.g., the black bees of England and the striped yellow and black bees of Italy -- or at least you could before English beekeepers imported Italian queens because Italians are easier to manage and produce larger crops of honey. If you look at Carniolans and Italians, then the "classical types" of each variety look different and have different behavioral characteristics. But if you read about the bees found in places between the "homelands" of the Italians and the Carniolans you will find descriptions of bees that are said to be Italians but having many of the traits of Carniolans, and vice-versa. The truth is that there are broad hybridization zones between the two "homeland" regions. But if somebody in the middle wanted to declare his/her genetic mixture as the standard of a new "race" of bees, that idenitty would be as valid as either of the other two. Bees don't come labeled by nature except in their own individual genomes.
That being said, there has been lots of work done to try to sort out the general family histories of groups in Europe. The Lapps are linguistically very different from everybody else, and I believe they have some higher percentages of some haplotypes than do other Europeans. So you can wonder where they came from, when they got to Europe, etc. There is a chart on page 268 of Cavalli-Sforza's History and Geography of Human Genes that shows the genetic relations among 26 different groups. Those groups are generally identified by their geographical locations, and from that genetic tree you can see that Lapps are kind of off on their own, that Sardinians are next in line for remoteness, and then they are followed by the Greeks. Generally the rest of the results are pretty much as one would expect, e.g., Germans and Swiss are very close.
Lest anyone take too much comfort from this picture of sub-sub-racial differentiation, take a look at the charts in the rest of the chapter that show how, if you concentrate on one set of characteristics, some geographical area is tessalated by certain bands of genetic similarity, but if you pick some other set of characteristics then the bands on the map look totally different. So Michael and Patrick might both be mugwump Irish, but Patrick might be black Irish and Michael might not. In fact, Michael even might better fit in with the Scots on that one score.
Bottom line, if your ancestors all came from Wales and you want to know what your genetic constitution really is (and not just what it is statistically likely to be), you will have to get your genome analyzed. Beware. You might end up looking more like a Sardinian than whatever you thought you really were. P0M 21:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
A notable racial group is the white race. Its history is well documented white history or [http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/ white history].-- Dark Tea 09:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Although it is clear that their is variation in color among the white racial group. The white racial group is clearly distinct here: white subraces or [http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr1.htm white subraces].-- Dark Tea 10:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
There is no "real definition" of white. It's a fiction. FilipeS 20:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
On race and intelligence, please [2] Slrubenstein | Talk 13:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
We do not pursue truth in this matter. We pursue usefulness. It is more useful to conclude that African Americans are innately equal to other races in intelligence. Therefore, whether they are or aren't, it should be our policy to act as if they are. The reason is as follows: If it is agreed that African Americans are innately less intelligent, then they will have no motivation to try to improve and to try to learn difficult subjects. There will be a feeling of utter hopelessness, which will lead to despair. However, if it is agreed that they are equally intelligent, then they will have some motivation and, even if they fail, the standards can be lowered or tests can be eliminated altogether. In other words, it is more constructive for society to agree by convention that African Americans are of equal intelligence, whether it is strictly true or not. Lestrade 21:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)ArnoldSchwarzneger
For over a century now, the trend in anthropology, biology and more recently in genetics has been for more and more evidence to show up contradicting the notion that there are distinct human races. Human beings are simply both more alike and more diverse than that. "Race" as it is commonly perceived it is a social thing. If the concept of "race" has no objective biological basis, then surely the idea that there may be innate differences in intelligence between different races becomes nonsensical. Our gene pool is too scrambled to allow for that possibility. FilipeS 12:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
See this article definition of "race"... How somebody could claim that there are human subspecies? What that's mean? Is that ranging of human beings? What do you talking about with that claim in definition? -- 80.102.113.62 04:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Over 5 centuries, such claims that there are human subspecies, was excuse for slavery, segregation, exclusion, genocide, extermination. So I call people who maintain this theories to think, what they are talknig about. -- 80.102.113.62 05:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Top note of this article states: This article concerns the term "race" as used in reference to human beings. -- 80.102.113.62 17:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
FelipeS, you misunderstand. To say that racemay be a social group is not the same thing as saying all social groups are races. You are making an elementary error of logic. All apples are fruits; not all fruits are apples. Ethnic groups are one kind of social group, races are(ormay be, according tosome) another kind of social group. As to your suggestion that we have already seen that races are not social groups, as anonymous user 80 points out, we editors do not put our own views in the article. Many verifiable sources (works by anthropologists and sociologists most prominently) argue that races are social constructions and social groups, and that when people self-identify asmembersof a race they are identifying with a social group. It doesn't matter whether you think this is true or not. What matters is that it is a verifiable view that must be represented in the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I understand your point about race as popularly understood. But NPOV requires that we include other views, not just the popular view. One important view is that race is a social group and that view must be included, and clearly stated. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
What are you talking about? Your comment has nothing to do with mine. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Eric Wolf, Marvin Harris, and virtually any anthropologist I know of writing about race in the Americas, also Ann Stoler and people writing about race in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. I think most sociologists also view race as a social group. And your 11:36 comment by the way did not broach this issue of race as social group. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
FelipeS, you are talking nonsense. Also, this is the secont time you put words in my mouth. Please stop misrepresenting me. I never ever ever said race is a synonym for ethnicity. I even explained this to you in my 12:13, 10 February 2007 posting. This talk page would work better if you read the comments you purport to be responding to. And yes, when you reject any POV that does not coincide with your own, of course you are a common POV-pusher. Nothing else. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Neoracist agenca? So you think social scientists who study fascism are therefore fascists? Are social scientists who study imperialism imperialists? Do you think geologists are rocks? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed in some WP articles they talk about the "XXXian people". "People" can mean "persons" but that is obviously not what they mean - they mean "race" (or "ethnicity", a synonym). So I'm making it my mission to replace "XXXian people" wherever it occurs with "XXXian race". This will get me into disputes with Wikicrats who are promoting their ethno/racial "Peoples". Fourtildas 04:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be stated explicitly at the beginning that races have common ancestry? As it stands, according to the first paragraph, bald people or any self-identified group could be a race. It should say up front that the article is about the modern meaning, "one of the major divisions of mankind", and not about the many other usages of the word "race" you will find in a dictionary, such as "tribe, nation, or people". Presumably the article is about that particular concept, not all concepts described by "race". Also, my English teacher would red-pencil "The term race tries ...". 24.64.165.176 04:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I deleted a few quotes that SecurID put in the article for two reasons: first, a section of an article should not just consist of a selection of quotes - that is not how to write an article. Second, this article has a structure and I see no reason to create a new section called "arguments against race" as if there are just two sides to an argument, when the article already provides much more sophisticated coverage of debates concerning race. Third, the views expressed in those quotes are already in the article, in appropriate sections. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
For the record, these are here. Something here may find their way into an article needing editing. For what its worth.
Dr. Sylvia Spengler, U.C. Berkeley Genetics
Trying to mix genetics with race is, to my mind, inappropriate; cannot be done...Race is something we do to each other; it has nothing to do with what our DNA does to us. [1]
Eric Lander, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Lab, Whitehead Institute
Any two humans on this planet are more than 99.9 percent identical at the molecular level. Racial and ethnic differences are all indeed only skin deep. [2]
J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer Celera Genomics Corp.
The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis. In the five Celera genomes there is no way to tell one ethnicity from another. Society and medicine treats us all as members of populations, whereas as individuals we are all unique and population statistics do not apply. No serious scholar in this field thinks that race is a scientific concept. It just is not. [3]
American Anthropological Association
Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation lies within so-called racial groups. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. [4]
Now to check that I'm not being buffaloed. Fr ed 16:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
SecurID, I think you are acting in good faith but you are wrong. first of all, the people you quote are simply not the scientists who established the prevailing arguments against the validity of race as a biological concept. The article already refers, explicitly, to the actual scientists who did the actual research. Second, you are simply wrong that the article buries the view that many scientists see race as a social construct: the introduction makes this explicit as does section 2.3. Third, you ask for a specific section arguing against race as a biological concept and it already exists - section 2.4.4. finally, your edit - aside from simply being atrocious style - is politically foolhardy. If you add another (redundant, superfluous) section stating race is not a biological concept, you are just inviting someone else to add another section countering those arguments. The fact is, the article already is accurate and complies with NPOV. But maybe you are not acting in good faith. maybe you want to turn a well-crafted and properly sourced article into a soap-box. Wikipedia is not a soap-box for any point of view and if you try to turn this article into a soap box for your own POV you are only going to invite and legitimize people who disagree with you doing the same and using this article as a soap-box for the view that race is a valid biological view. The proper thing to do is not use Wikipedia as a soap-box. By the way, I think your idea of summarizing arguments is a good idea, but you need to understand that in science (biological or social) an "argument" is not an assertion of a view (which is all your quotes do) but an explanation of reasons (which this article provides, explicitly) Slrubenstein | Talk 17:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I am not saying the article is perfect (Manus's recent edits make sense to me). Anyway, my advice about a summary of arguments linked article is to start with the arguments that are already in the article ... Slrubenstein | Talk 17:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Sub-(sub-)Section 2.4.4 could become a section. This view is verifiably predominant, well supported by evidence, demonstrably unifying, and has the added virtue of being true. Fr ed 19:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
(Copied from my user talk page)
Just so you know what I meant: if you add a section called "arguments against race as a biological concept" or however you word it, I assure you that womeone will - within a few weeks or months - add a section called "arguments for ..." That said, I would not have cut what you added had I not sincerely thought that the points had already been made in the article, citing more important authorities (specifically, Boas, Montagu, Wilson and Brown, Brace, Livingston, Ehrlich and Holm, and Lewontin - these are the researchers who actually demonstrated the meaningless of race). Also, the introduction has three paragraphs and the first two stress that most scientists view race as a social construct - the third paragraph states that some scientists continue to believe it is biologically valid, which is true. I don't see how the introduction is biased in favor of race as biologically real. Also, while it is true that the section on the argument for race as lineage (the only meaningful scientific/biological use of race left) is a little longer than the section on the argument against race as lineage, that is because the argument against is so simple and straightforward - in this case, length of the section does not in my opinion indicate bias. The section on the argument against just does not need to be any longer. Finally, about a third of the article is specifically on race as a social construct. I just do not see how anyone can think that the view that race is biological is invalid and that we must view race as a social construct is in anyway downplayed in the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your note on my talk page. You are right that the article mentions the meaningless of race, but I still disagree with you that it's given equal weight. While researchers like Boas (1912), Montagu (1941), Wilson and Brown (1953), Livingston (1962), Ehrlich and Holm (1964) are already included, they seem to be outdated by the modern genetic studies mentioned. That's why I would like to include the findings of recent researchers and studies which second their early research and the researchers I cited are indeed authorities (fringe researchers are not given a chance to announce their findings for White House press releases). Given the fact that most of the article space is used to eleborate on all the different racial theories people came up with in course of time, illustrated with several detailed illustrations about race lineages, genetic clusters, DNA clusters, and so on, and then, additionally, provides a section which summarizes these already lengthy discussions, it's only fair to include at least one section which summarizes the opposing opinions of early as well as recent researchers. I don't want to act against consensus, that's why I will not edit the article before we reached one and would appreciate it if we could have this discussion on the articles talk page so that other editors have a chance to voice their opinions on that matter as well. SecurID 16:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for bring the discussion back here, SecurID. Has anyone suggested a history of racial theory or similar. This would put most of the content here in a suitable context. The end user is unlikely to get the information she is looking for, in the few minutes most readers take with an article. Finer detail of information can be found by an simply structured TOC, or linking to the pernicious theories of discredited 'thinkers'. Anyway, - Fr ed 17:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Racial theory (history) or Race (historical definitions)?. Anyway, here is a bit more history:
The term race is used in a wide variety of contexts, with related but often distinct meanings. Its use is often controversial, largely because of the political and sociological implications of different definitions, but also because of disagreements over such issues as whether humans can be meaningfully divided into multiple races.
This is from a fairly good source. The last line might need a little work. Cheers, - Fr ed 08:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
In response to recent edits, I have a request and a point. Request: if someone knows of more recent surveys of biologists, can they please provide the source, the sample size (and if appropriate sampling methods) and actual figures? Point: biologists study all sorts of things. When it comes to this article, I think what matters is the opinion of biologists who study human beings, especially human evolution and genetic variation. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't. First, let's note that the article already has a link to the AAA statement. Second, the AAA statement is a statement passed by a professional organization meaning that at an annual convention, at the business meeting, a majority of people voted for the resolution - this can be as small a number as 100 out of 5,000. To be clear: I believe that the AAA statement reflects the mainstream view of anthropologists, but let's be honest, it is not a survey and cannot act as a surrugate for a survey. Third, the AAA is an organization of anthropologists, not biologists. The AAA does include biological anthropologists and I doubt that the statement says anything that most biological anthropologists would reject. However, the vast majority of biological anthropologists do not attend annual AAA meetings and may not have been involved in drafting or voting on the statement (most go to AAPA meetings). The AAA statement at best reflects the views of all anthropologists, including biological anthropologists but also cultural anthropologists, linguists, and archeologists. It definitely does not represent the views of biologists. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
An anon user has replaced comments that look like this:
with comments that look like this:
This is a long comment that does not extend all the way to the right margin. It is indented again at the left margin and so on down the page on and on and on and onand on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Now it is right-indented too, as though it were a block quote in the old style.
I originally reverted all changes because the ones I noticed first were short quotations (?) that did not look like real quotations, and because on my current computer screen the type is so small that I missed the left margin colon in the originals. Later I realized my mistake, so I have replaces most of those edits. Personally, I don't like the new style. The block quote style looks less jarring to me, so I left most of the places that had used that format as they were. (There was one place in close proximity to one of the new style quotations that I had to change because otherwise it would look too strange.
I don't care which format is used, but I thought I'd better let everyone know what is going on. This is the first time I've seen this new format for block quotations. P0M 02:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
=== Race and genocide ===
The blindingly clear (though historically revisionist) obfucscations of one of the most important (and historically commonly applied) applications of racial classifications has been genocidal. For example, the first concentration camps were made in Africa (during the Boer war), the killing of Central Asians by Soviet Russians and also the Vietnam War have all relied upon racism and racial motivations to actively induce and motivate military policies designed to kill large numbers of people.
I removed this new addition to the article for several reasons:
I do not want to discourage the writer, nor do I want to simply delete the new content, so here it is. P0M 23:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
this article is really long SkyScrapers 15:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The current trend toward equating nationality as race has a very good useful rationale. If Asians, Negroes, and Caucasians are considered to be racially different, then the distinction between them is too definite. They each feel extremely alienated from the others, as though they were almost different species. However, if racial differences are simply mere differences in nationality, then the distinction is not as severe, and some kind of harmony is more of a possibility. Lestrade 22:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
How can a discussion of race be completely void of almost any real academic rigor? Reading this article I feel like I am sitting in an introductory Anthropology class listening to people discuss the topic without reading the texts. What about biological affinity? What about Dr. Stanley Rhine? If there were not biological differences in people how can physical anthropologists correctly assign "race" or biological affinity to skulls and skeletons with reproducible results? This is an emotional topic for many people, but I ask that we set aside our differences and approach this from a purely academic standpoint. Please provide refs and clearly identify scientific theory from law. Cheers Rtb677 01:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Too many liberal PC hippies on here.
Manic Hispanic
01:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with "liberal", "pc", or "hippie". There is value to the study of biological differences between peoples. This information has medical value, forensic value, and academic value. People are arguing here from either a political view and trying to make the science fit. We should try to achieve a degree of objectivity. Granted I disagree with
Franz Boas, I don't think true objectivity is achievable.
Rtb677
02:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Why does this article claim that the existence of so called clusters is indicative of distinct lineages? This is simply untrue, indeed if distinct lineages did exist then there would be no need to do clustering analyses. The very fact that so many alleles are held in common by so many populations is the reason why clustering experiments are done. It is also clear form these data from Rosenberg that most populations actually belong to multiple clusters, even if the vast majority of populations have majority membership of one cluster. These data from Rosenberg et al (2002) should not be used as they have been challenged by Serre and Pääbo (2004). It is better to use Rosenberg et al. (2005) paper because it addresses the issues that Serre and Pääbo address. This 2005 paper alos uses a great deal more alleles, giving their results greater resolution. A quick look at their data shows that when their study design is altered their results are far less unequivocal, with much more membership of multiple clusters for individuals in the various populations. It is therefore apparent that the vast majority of individual people within each population have a membership of multiple clusters, so how can these be lineages? This indicates that these clusters are far far from distinct lineages. Alun 09:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
" Race and multilocus allele clusters" Muntuwandi 03:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
This article needs some dumbing down. Too much technical jargon Muntuwandi 03:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Ramdrake is right - while I agree that ease of communication is important, let's first look at ways to improve the readability without losing information. This has been a controversial article in the past - maintaining balance is important. There's also a lot of useful information that I would not like to see lost. Most importantly - major changes need to be discussed. Guettarda 16:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)#
To Guettarada maintaining ballance is important. One of the problems with certain articles on Wikipedia is that sometimes certain points of view are given undue weight. In this article the point of view that "some geneticists" think that "self identified race/ethnicity" is a useful "classification" is somehow used to imply that these geneticists are supporting the concept of biological race. But the fact is that self identified race/ethnicity is obviously a social construct in itself. Indeed the whole section from the introduction :
Other scientists however, have argued that this position is motivated more by political than scientific reasons. [4] Still others argue that categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful, that these categories correspond to clusters inferred from multilocus genetic data, and that this statistical correspondence, not necessarily a proven cause and effect, implies that genetic factors somehow contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation among groups.
Is quite meaningless. For example it claims that "this position is politically motivated", but what "position" is it refering to exactly? Do they mean the position that genotypic and phenotypic variation is best understood in terms of populations and clines? If so this is simply untrue, the reason scientists think that genes and physical differences are best understood in terms of clines is because they have been measured exhaustively, and the idea that these characteristics can represent discrete lineages has been comprehensively disproven. So this very first sentence is totally inclrrect. It is not even properly cited, a book is given for the citation!!! Are we to read the whole book to check this citation? To cite this properly we need a page number, otherwise it remains uncited. And what does categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful mean? It's "pure frontier gibberish" as far as I can see, it seems to be saying exactly the same thing as the previous paragraph which says "human genotypic and phenotypic variation in terms of populations and clines instead." That is the fact that "categories of self defined race/ancestry (itself a social construct) or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful" does not preclude these "categories" from representing specific regions on the semi-discontinuous distribution of phentoypes and genotypes. And what does this mean "genetic factors somehow contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation among groups" what is "unexplained phenotypic variation"? when it's at home? Human physical and genetic variation is geographically distributed, this is well known, and it is obvious that different genes occur at different frequencies in different populations (though it is only a tiny minority of genes that actually vary on an inter-population level, most variation occurs within group). But here's the rub, this article seems to be taking the view that any sort of evidence for between group variation is de facto proof of the validity of "race" as a biological construct. To be blunt this is simply nonsense. Furthermore the article gives undue weight to this sort of argument, the idea of neutrality does not mean that we need to be even handed. It is obvious to any biologist that the idea of human "biological races" is a nonsense, and no biologists would claim that there is evidence for such categories. Being able to identify the continental origins of an individuals ancestors based on their genetics is not proof that "race" is a biological concept, it is simply proof that certain genes are more likely to occur in some parts of the world than others. Race as a biological construct would involve belief in the multiregional hypothesis because this is the only hypothesis that supports the idea of discrete non-overlöapping human population lineages, but no one believes this hypothesis any more, because there is no evidence for it. When biomedical researchers talk about "race" they are discussing medical research, but the medical concept of "race" is a social concept and includes health factors associated with "race" that have nothing to do with biology or genetics. Indeed to say that self defined race/ethnicity correlates with genetic "clusters" can hardly be a shocking revelation, it's analogous to saying that an African American can be genetically shown to have African ancestors, well I don't really think we need genetic tests to tell us that. In short this article gives undue weight to certain points of view thatare just not supported, even by the sources that cite them. This sort of distortion is totally unencyclopaedic. Alun 17:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Multiple valid and verifiable views. Implying that proven falsehoods are true, or reasonable, is not kosher. FilipeS 17:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Seldin's original data It's clear form these maps that when the "clustering" data are displayed geographically that these so called "clusters" are broadly geographically distributed, and represent genetic clines, with geographically localised maxima, they are not discrete population clusters. Show me a scientist who would argue that these clusters are discrete populations, because that's what the introduction of the article seems to be saying. I plan to produce similar maps for the 2005 Rosenberg data that are shown above in this talk page, these are also obviously clinal, observe the number of individuals who belong to multiple clusters. Alun 19:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Anthropologists long ago discovered that humans’ physical traits vary gradually, with groups that are close geographic neighbors being more similar than groups that are geographically separated. This pattern of variation, known as clinal variation, is also observed for many alleles that vary from one human group to another. Another observation is that traits or alleles that vary from one group to another do not vary at the same rate. This pattern is referred to as nonconcordant variation. Because the variation of physical traits is clinal and non-concordant, anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that the more traits and the more human groups they measured, the fewer discrete differences they observed among races and the more categories they had to create to classify human beings. The number of races observed expanded to the 30s and 50s, and eventually anthropologists concluded that there were no discrete races (Marks, 2002). Twentieth and 21st century biomedical researchers have discovered this same feature when evaluating human variation at the level of alleles and allele frequencies. Nature has not created four or five distinct, nonoverlapping genetic groups of people.
The human species possesses remarkably little genetic variation when compared with other organisms. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), close primate relatives to humans, possess approximately four times as much within-species genetic variation as do humans (Bamshad, Wooding, Salisbury, & Stephens, 2004; Kittles & Weiss, 2003). The relative lack of variability among humans can be observed when researchers measure genetic variation between two individuals or genetic variation between two human groups. Any two unrelated persons, chosen at random from across the globe, are 99.9% identical in their nucleotide sequences (nucleotides are the four famous DNA building blocks—cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine). That is, their genomes are 99.9% the same. Humans’ comparative genetic similarity can be explained by the fact that they are a young species, one that migrated out of Africa relatively recently in evolutionary terms and expanded rapidly to populate the globe (Kittles & Weiss, 2003; Olson, 2002).
This text does not represent a point of view so much as the academic orthodoxy, but in the article this orthodox point of view is given very little space in favour of sensationalist and distorted interpretations of the data that appear to be something approaching OR. But the quote above represents both orthodox thinking and the observed and measured distribution of diversity. This is not an argument of equals as the article tries to imply. It is an argument between science on the one hand and a few wingnut racists on the other who will hold on to their politically motivated racialist point of view however much scince disproved the existence of "race" as a biological construct. So we should be basically saying that biological races do not exist, because that's what science tells us, but also that a tiny minority of people still want to hold on to the belief that they do exist. Then the article can concentrate on discussing socially constructed concepts of race, which is what "biological races" are anyway. Alun 06:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.....The geographic pattern of genetic variation within this array is complex, and presents no major discontinuity. Humanity cannot be classified into discrete geographic categories with absolute boundaries. Furthermore, the complexities of human history make it difficult to determine the position of certain groups in classifications. Multiplying subcategories cannot correct the inadequacies of these classifications....Generally, the traits used to characterize a population are either independently inherited or show only varying degrees of association with one another within each population. Therefore, the combination of these traits in an individual very commonly deviates from the average combination in the population. This fact renders untenable the idea of discrete races made up chiefly of typical representatives.....Partly as a result of gene flow, the hereditary characteristics of human populations are in a state of perpetual flux. Distinctive local populations are continually coming into and passing out of existence....There is no necessary concordance between biological characteristics and culturally defined groups. On every continent, there are diverse populations that differ in language, economy, and culture. There is no national, religious, linguistic or cultural group or economic class that constitutes a race....Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations. [6]
You completely missed the point, and you repeatedly miss the point. This is not an issue about the correctness of any claims about the distribution or frequency of genes, or about clines. If you reply to me by insisting that your view of genetics (or clines) is correct and Rushton's is false, you will only prove once again that you miss the point. If you reply to me with any argument about genetics or race, you will only prove once again that you miss the point. The point is that Wikipedia does not include the views of editors, especially not views about what is correct or incorrect, right or wrong, true or false; Wikipedia is committed to including all significant views, including and especially ones we do not agree with. If you think I am idolizing Rushton you are even more mistaken because it means you do not understand the previous sentence. The article does not present Rushton as if his view represents a scientific consensus, it simply presents his view. You seem to think that simply to present his view is to argue that his view is the consensus - that is just silly. You seem to think that simply to present his view is to make a judgement that it is as valid as the majority view. But that argument of yours only once again proves that you miss the point since Wikipedia does not judge the correctness of views and wikipedia policy simply doe snot allow you to let your judgement of the correctness of a view influence edits to an article. If it does, you are violating Wikipedia policy and your edits will be reverted. If you want to contribute to articles, comply with policies. If all you want to do is express yourself, go start a blog. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
(1) Why is Rushton a matter of discussion? Whether he's right or wrong, his contributions are relatively minor to this overall topic. (2) Settle down folks. I think there's a lot of talking past one another. Based on my very cursory reading, the distinctions that Alun is trying to draw are appropriate -- a "distinct lineage" is not necessarily the same thing as a "distinct population". There are enough subtle distinctions in this topic to be a challenge of the analytic philosophy variety -- some balance will need to be made between the presentation of a historical account of changing views and the diversity and subtlety of contemporary views. (3) but, otoh, an analytic philosopher can prove that the "gene" is not a rigorously valid concept, so care is need to not allow the distinctions drawn by one discipline to over-ride the language used by others. -- W.R.N. 08:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I remember P0M, and I never saw him say anything remotely like that. You guys sure seem to have a tendency to misreport the facts. FilipeS 08:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
He was a tad philosophical, but he also made some good points. FilipeS 09:08, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
You can spin it any way you like. You and your buddies have been giving undue weight to out-on-the-fringe-bordering-on-crackpot minority views. FilipeS 12:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)