The Race thread. How many races are there REALLY? Does race even exist?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by TimeTraveler, Aug 14, 2006.

  1. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

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    This is a thread, where racists, non-racists, genetics experts and anyone else can discuss how many races actually exist genetically. Talls, Blondes, Shorts, or whatever can be genetically proven. You can cite animal studys, you can cite anything you want, as long as it's from a scientific perspective.

    Display your evidence through a URL, along with a quote, and then a personal opinion on the subject. The idea is to see if we can come to a conclusion on how many races there actually are, since this is not the 1800s, we have more knowledge now and the ability to analyze this or at least look at fossils and the latest genetic research.

    I ask this question because I wonder, how will race be defined in the future once we know what genes do? Once we know exactly the number of genes that seperate two individuals, will we use this calculation of genetic variation to define race?

    http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/
     
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  3. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i assume by 'race' you mean differences in a persons dna.
    so with that in mind i will venture a guess of approx. 6 billion races
     
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  5. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Here we go again...
     
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  7. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

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    There's not really any races anymore, just different traits.
     
  8. Count Sudoku Banned Banned

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    Great. I guess we don't need affirmative action, set asides, 1 way hate laws, freedom of association restrictions etc anymore since race doesn't exist and therefore racism doesn't exist either.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2006
  9. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    1. race is a modern idea. the anceints did not divide people by physical differences.
    2. race has no genetic basis. there is no characteristic trait or gene that distinguishes members of one so called race from another so called race
    3. human subspecies do not exist. for there to be a 'race' then a subspecies of human must exist and there are none.
    4. most variation is within not between 'races'. 2 koreans are as geneticly similar as a korean and an italian.
    5. race is an idea only, it has no biological basis.
     
  10. Count Sudoku Banned Banned

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    BS.
     
  11. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    While genetic techniques used in the past attempted to show a biological basis for race, research since the 1970s has indicated evidence to the contrary. Genetic variation is continuous and discrete genetic distinctions between races do not exist. More genetic variation is seen within races than among races. Race is not clearly definable in biological terms because it is mostly a social construct; therefore, race cannot be consistently classified because there are not universal standards for measuring race. Racism (and other social/cultural factors linked to race and ethnicity) influences socioeconomic status which has a profound impact on health and confounds the relationship between race and health. However, race is still largely misconceived as having a biological basis.
    http://www.gene-watch.org/programs/determinism/Racebibliography.html

    you might find the following page insightful
    http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Reardon/

    A key message of the center is that leading scientists have determined that race and ethnic classifications have been socially and politically determined and have no basis in biological science.
    http://www.nih.gov/news/NIH-Record/04_15_2003/story04.htm

    “…what we call ‘race’ is the invention not of nature but of our social institutions and practices. The social nature of racial categories is significant because social practice can be altered far more readily than can genetic constitution”
    http://edrev.asu.edu/reviews/rev308.htm


    i could go on but i think i have proved my point
     
  12. Zephyr Humans are ONE Registered Senior Member

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    Faulty logic. Religion is not proof of a god's existence.
     
  13. q0101 Registered Senior Member

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    I don’t like the word (Race) because it is not used for the sole purpose of describing genetic traits. It is also used to describe the religious and cultural differences amongst people. From a purely biological point of view, I would say that there are no races. (Black, white, African, Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, Oriental, Ect.) Those are words are a primitive inaccurate way of describing what we are. (Genetically)

    There are different genetic traits within the human population. But due to the increase of multicultural societies and so-called interracial sex, there is a large percentage of our population that is unaware of which so-called racial group(s) they belong to.

    We have people that are calling themselves Native American when both of their birth parents could have been form China. We have people living in North America that are mostly of African decent calling themselves black or Hispanic depending on where their ancestors slave boats landed. We have people that are living in the United Stated Of America that could literally call themselves black or African American in the summer and white or Caucasian in the winter.
     
  14. q0101 Registered Senior Member

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    No, it makes you misanthropic.

    I’m not a racist, because I don’t discriminate. I hate most people. Black, white and everything in between.
     
  15. Zakariya04 and it was Valued Senior Member

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    hello people

    there is only the human race.....
     
  16. Zakariya04 and it was Valued Senior Member

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    interms of people
     
  17. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    All wrong.

    It would be great if we could invent a utopian world by making things up, instead of having to confront reality, but unfortunately, we can't.

    1. The ancients didn't divide people up? Only if you go so far back that there were no differences. A ton of evidence is now being uncovered to suggest that homo Erectus wiped out Neanderthals, possible eating them. The best theories for why we lost our hair come from our ability to differentiate ourselves from other hominids. More "recently" Egyptians were very racist 2,500 years ago.

    2. Wrong. The reason black people have darker skin is because they have alleles to control melanin types. We even know exactly which genes do the controlling, what types there are, and what colors result. And this is just the most obvious. There are genes for hair color and courseness. The the size and shape of noses and lips. For average height. For susceptability to disease. You can't just make up arguments because you want them to be true, and because you can find other utopian thinkers that are also willing to lie for the "good" of mankind.

    3. Race and subspecies are not the same thing. You are lying to press an agenda that does more harm than good.

    4. Wrong. The closer you are to your common ancestors, the more genetically similar you will be. This is a fundamental fact of evolution. What you are talking about is the fact that you are ABLE to find a single Korean and a single Italian that are more similar to each other than that single Korean is to another Korean. This is because the small tails of the two bell-curves of the genetic distribution of both races overlap. You are taking an extreme example from (let's say) the left side of one bell-curve and the right side of the other bell-curve, and comparing that overlap to the distance between a sample on the right side of the first bell-curve.

    This is disingenuous at best, and an outright lie at worst. But mostly likely, just ignorant science and a lack of understanding of genetics and evolution. The reality is that the location of the median of each bell-curve of any two races do not correspond. The genetic sample of each race has a unique genetic distribution. It is because the group has not interbred with the other groups, which is what it means to have race in the first place.

    5. You are just stating the same nonsense with another bullet here. Almost as if a list with 5 points somehow carries more weight than a list with 4 points. It doesn't matter, you are wrong on all accounts. 100% objectively wrong. No room for wiggling. You can go find thousands of other utopian thinkers that believe the same nonsense, and hundreds of professional-looking websites that agree with you, and you can post all the links and quotes you want, but you will still be wrong. Just with company.
     
  18. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    You mean there is only the human ~Species~. Race is variation within the species.

    Seriously guys, you aren't going to stop ignorant jerks from hating people that are different from themselves by PRETENDING that race doesn't exist. The idiots that choose to be racist are not going to be deterred due to your semantic games. We need to spread truth, both biological and ethical, in order to deal with the reality of human races. Lying to each other, in the vain and ignorant hope that the problems will go away will solve nothing.



    Sorry for the double-post... but I just couldn't let this pass.
     
  19. makeshift Registered Senior Member

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    Before we can go any further, we obviously need to come to some general agreement about what "race" is, which is not going to be easy. Race is a matter of degree, depending on how the word is construed. It seems to me the most distinct, and therefore the most obvious candidates for being considered races are East Asians, Caucasians, and Negroids. So there are at least 3 races, depending of course on what your definition of race is. Some would even consider Jews to be their own race because of their distinctive features like intelligence, black hair, brown eyes. Also because, they, as populations definitely keep a trend of breeding within the bloodline, isolating themselves from other genes. Other than that, they take on the appearance of regular white people. But certainly the difference between them and, say, the British is less distinguished than a Brit vs a Negro. Like I said, a matter of degree. Where do you draw the line? It's an argument of semantics.

    As for the article, the author says that only about 6-10% of our individual genetic differences are caused by differences we use to classify people with our classical understanding of "race." But that small percentage has an undeniable and positive effect on differences of our appearance and intelligence.

    Just because our individual differences aren't affected by what we would intuitively think should be a corresponding percentage of our genes doesn't mean squat. I don't think one can intuitively understand the mathematics of gene expression, much less if one is a layperson.

    Here's a cool wiki link on craniofacial anthropometry:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craniofacial_Anthropometry

    It describes a method for using skulls to identify race. Kind of interesting reading about the different shapes of the craniums.

    Peace.
     
  20. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

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    Alright, I know your type, you judge a persons intelligence based on their appearance. So Jews look smarter? Jews are really so smart? Yes Jews are smart, but it depends on the time period, in Egypt Jews were slaves to Negriods who were building Pyramids, and after that, Christ who was a Jew was killed. Jew's were smart yes, but they have been oppressed by every group of people on the planet, from black to white. The Jews also are not a race, they are a religion, and while they have traditions, Christ was a Jew, and whatever Jews are, they do have dark hair and dark eyes, which links their appearance to either Asian or Negroid. Consider the fact that some Jews do have curly hair, (Some whites do too), and we can see that the Jewish appearance genes are a mix of all races, from blonde to dark hair, from white to black (yes there are black Jews too). It's not really a race, but yes their genetic code is uniquely Jewish due to religious and cultural reasons.

    We agree that that small percentage of genes influences appearance, I will not debate that. However, what makes you think that intelligence would be such a small percentage of genes when there are so many types of intelligence? If you go to college or university it's not as if it's all white people there. If you look at a college, there are all sorts of intelligent people there, and if you want to define the intelligent as a seperate race from the supid, thats your choice.

    What I'm saying is, don't look at a persons appearance and automatically judge them as being of the intelligent or stupid race until you talk to them. I say anyone who has gone to college and worked their way to a degree, deserves some credit. If we judge people racially you will have black people with PHds being called stupid and white people with no degree or education at all being given CEO positions. Sorry, but I don't think that is fair, efficient, rational, or sane. According to the intelligence definition of race, only 20% of people have degrees, the rest are of the stupid race. If you are a racist, are you able to respect a black person, dressed in baggy pants with a gold chain and the whole rapper look (such as P.Diddy), if this black person actually has a Phd, and is successful? Do you treat this black person the same way you treat the black gangster criminal who actually never learned to read or never finished highschool? Can you see why this is irrational, illogical, and immoral if you treat these two obviously different people as the same group? Do you ignore the fact, that when blacks were brought here, they lost language abilities and had no way to know who was from what race? Races are starting to form, as you have different classes form, and you can see which blacks are intelligent, and talented. The same applies to all the other races, as time goes on and people adapt to the system, you can see, but I don't think you can just look at someones appearance and predict their future.
     
  21. andrew1234 Registered Senior Member

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    In my opinion. There is only one race. The human race. Everything else is just cultural diversities.
     
  22. D'ster Registered Senior Member

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    To deny that there is race, is racism in it'self.
     
  23. G. F. Schleebenhorst England != UK Registered Senior Member

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    If you break it down into scientific jargon, you can push whatever agenda you want because most of that talk is just bullshit: for example, humans and cabbages share 94% of their DNA....you can say whatever the fuck you want. What it comes down to is that there is much more to it than just genetics.
     

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