xev

[paulsamuel]

Are you going to bark all day little doggie, or are you going to tear my argument to shreds (as promised)?

“ Originally Posted by Xev
Paulsamuel:
My argument is simple.

There are certain physical characteristics shared by sub-groups of humans, that differentiate them from the mass of humanity, yet are not so different as to be considered seperate species of humans. To wit, the species homo sapiens sapiens is divided into various breeds.

”

That is not an argument. It is an opinion. An argument would require a fundamental scientific reason why different humans should belong to a single race. You provide no other argument other that it is 'obvious' to you.

Your opinion that is so 'obvious' seems to go against scientific studies that say it might be obvious, but there is no biologic reason to subdivide the human species into races. Paul gave references.

So, maybe you can backup the 'obvious' with a compelling argument, since that shouldn't be so difficult if it is really so 'obvious'.

there you go, maybe formulate an argument

Paul 1
Xev 0

 

[spuriousmonkey]

So the human races don't meet some biological requirement. Is that such a big deal?

Human 'races' don't meet the scientific biological criteria for race.

That is a big deal if you want to use scientific criteria to examine and describe the world.

If you are just interested in peoples opinions than it is not a big deal.

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

But the population laymen refer to as caucasoids are different to the population laymen call mongoloids, right? You can't deny this.
Forget genetics, if they are genetically similar then I'm not talking about genetics, its that simple.
They are different. Bottom line. I celebrate the differences and enjoy studying them. But apparently its not biological. Fine I won't treat it as biological. I never really approach anything like a biologist. It demands that you only discuss what you can see on microscope slides, you can't just talk about animals, so i'm not interested in "biology" anyway.

 

[Xev]

"denying race only denys a confusing, outdated and misleading semantic. we scientists have dropped it, now it's time to teach the lay people to drop it."

"We scientists"
How dare you, twit, speak for the art of science?
Your "authority" means nothing to us. Your authority does not convince us. Your authority could not even convince Mary Jane Rottencrotch to let you between her legs.
Only your arguments matter.

"if you choose to believe that these groups exist, that is fine, and it may even be helpful, but these 'groups' or 'races' are cultural and sociological designations, not biological and they should not be treated as such. "

I find it odd that a set of inherited attributes is not considered by you to be biological, but that is fine. I am not suprised that race is blurry when looked at from a strictly genetic perspective.

Does this mean it "doesn't exist"? Hardly. Gender is also somewhat blurry from a strictly "biological" perspective - I could give you all manner of examples - but this does not mean I am "not female" any more than the blurriness of race makes me "not white".

Did you have a point? I was civil to you until you started in with the screaming and the insults. And yet through all of them you've never managed to refute me.

Look at yourself paulsamuel. Do you think your posturing makes you an authority? Do you think being an authority would compensate you for the real lack you must feel?
Do you secretly fear that if it wasn't for all your good christian, egalitarian ideals that you'd be nothing, prey, weakling? That you just couldn't hack it if it wasn't for social liberalism?
Don't you realize that your petty squabbles on message forums are the closest you'll ever come to winning real conflicts?
Doesn't that make you worried?

There are certain physical characteristics shared by sub-groups of humans, that differentiate them from the mass of humanity, yet are not so different as to be considered seperate species of humans. To wit, the species homo sapiens sapiens is divided into various breeds.

Moron, you repeated what I said.
It's an observation. My argument is that the observation is valid.

Gendanken:
http://bathory.se/bilder/02_names/qseated2000.jpg
This would be the only Nordic God whose photo I have in my room. I stand by racial seperatism - the Nazis were pathetic fascists led by an idiot of an Alpine.

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

I would have preferred it if races, i mean.... ummm ... this is really difficult... I know, from now on lets just call races aah niggers, yeah that'll do. Ok, I would have preferred it if the different niggers stayed in the respected geographical locations that they adapted to. Purely for aesthetic reasons. Kind of like how I'm glad jaguars are in south america while lions are in africa. I like both jaguars and lions, and I like(or hate as it were) all niggers equally. Actually thats not true. I do have a slight heirarchy of preference in my head when it comes to niggers, but I don't think any is objectively better than any other. I guess I am kind of racist according to some people but I can assure you my slight seperatist streak isn't even related to that.
I just think south american indians are more dignified while hunting in the amazon than they are sniffing petrol in the bowels of some western styled city. I don't think any of the worlds populations are admirable today(bar the select few primitive tribal cultures like the massai), but I think ALL of them were before they met eachother, each in their own unique ways.
I wish european fleets never left harbour basically. Now that they have I can't see the point in wanting seperatism in multicultural communities. So I'm not really a seperatist now, I just would have preferred it if they stayed seperate in the first place.
Not for my own comfort mind you, I actually have no beef with interacting with other rac... i mean niggers(and I mean interacting if you know what I'm saying)
By pre-hysterical-pc-era standards I am by no means a racist at all.
The reason I would have preferred seperatism is to keep the earth a more classy work of art than the tacky joke it has become.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

It's an observation. My argument is that the observation is valid.

My observation is that your observation is invalid.

 

[gendanken]

Dr. Lou:

???
You do realise I'm one of the people that thinks forgetting about races is ridiculous right?

No I don't realize anything. You said this once:

"Up up, there's no such thing as race!
You can't ask questions like that" 3-31-04 3:21 p.m.
According to you, this was sarcasm. (You need practice.)

Paul:

you've misunderstood the argument. that's ok. i'll update you.

Allright.
But just remember your initial presmise- wanting to group Xev into either a bigot or an idiot ignorant of your 'science'.

in a cultural and sociological sense, race exists, but it is a human construct and human 'races' do not exist biologically. that's because of the strict biological definition of race, i.e. a population genetically distinct enough to be coherent to the exclusion of all other groups.

Not so. I'll quote me again- THERE ARE NO PUREBREDS.
Its fallous to think of race as wholly exclusive between groups- there is no specific 'gene' that defines race.

Give me girl from high atop the Andes and I can point out the features she shares with her tribe. The high cheeks, the jet black hair.
Give me one from Papua and I can point out the round nose, dark skin, curly hair.
Give me one from the northern European regions and I'll point out the light hair, eyes, and freckles.

However, all these traits can be found in all races at low levels depending. So? Its only natural, yes? Same species. Yet all these features I just pointed out to you are dominant in groups of people that in time chose breeding on the principals of "like" and "geography". And so....race. Polymorphism.

There is no such thing as pure and no reason to keep any 'race' seperate as white supremacists like to sing about. As I said elsewhere- the "white" ones would fit into this mythological buttcrack I find separatists peeping out from like a turd.

xev refuses to accept this scientific evidence and attacks all (with impunity since she's a moderator, which I consider unconscionably irresponsible)

Agreed.

Yet it does not take nuclear science to see that your goal has been accopmplished here. Go back and read why you even started this thread and why her being a self-proclaimed idiot (rhymes with bigot) should have stopped this thread 20 posts ago.

....who disagree with her with vehemence. she dared call me, me!!, (who is an evolutionary biologist, a geneticist, a Dr., a scientist, a university level teacher) an imbecile! The insolence of this teenager has no bounds!

True, but she's twenty.
However, who the fuck cares if you're a scientist though? Think it can hide this strange scent of 'lack' fanning right off of you?

Xev:

This would be the only Nordic God whose photo I have in my room. I stand by racial seperatism - the Nazis were pathetic fascists led by an idiot of an Alpine.

Good for you.

Now, enough of the cant. Your reasons for serperatism should prove interesting. Floor's yours.

 

[paulsamuel]

But the population laymen refer to as caucasoids are different to the population laymen call mongoloids, right? You can't deny this.
Forget genetics, if they are genetically similar then I'm not talking about genetics, its that simple.
They are different. Bottom line. I celebrate the differences and enjoy studying them. But apparently its not biological. Fine I won't treat it as biological. I never really approach anything like a biologist. It demands that you only discuss what you can see on microscope slides, you can't just talk about animals, so i'm not interested in "biology" anyway.

i can't speak to what laymen refer to or what they believe, I'm a scientist.

group individuals on what ever basis you want, e.g. all brown-haired people on the right all blondes on the left; just know you're splitting real biological groups, even to the level of siblings, to satisfy some arbitrary grouping.

Let me repeat that you would be splitting real biological groups even, families, even brothers and sisters, to satisfy an ARBITRARY!!!! grouping.

what that means, is that i'm calling your designations, caucasian, mongoloid and negroid, arbitrary classifications with NO basis in science

 

[paulsamuel]

"denying race only denys a confusing, outdated and misleading semantic. we scientists have dropped it, now it's time to teach the lay people to drop it."

How dare you, twit, speak for the art of science?

I dare because I am a scientist, trained and educated, unlike you.

Your "authority" means nothing to us. Your authority does not convince us. Your authority could not even convince Mary Jane Rottencrotch to let you between her legs.
Only your arguments matter.

that's just lovely, but typical.

Just because I am an authority does not mean I'm wrong, the fallacy of 'appeal to authority' does not preclude one from being correct nor does it preclude using an authority for edification. You will learn all this stuff in your logic class if and when you're accepted to a university.

"if you choose to believe that these groups exist, that is fine, and it may even be helpful, but these 'groups' or 'races' are cultural and sociological designations, not biological and they should not be treated as such. "

I find it odd that a set of inherited attributes is not considered by you to be biological, but that is fine. I am not suprised that race is blurry when looked at from a strictly genetic perspective.

I find it odd that you arguing from such a state of ignorance. Just because two individuals or groups share an inherited characteristic does not mean they form a race, or even that they share a race. This is exactly why there are no human races, i.e. whites, blacks, asians etc. share too many inherited characteristics to be considered a race.

Did you have a point? I was civil to you until you started in with the screaming and the insults. And yet through all of them you've never managed to refute me.

my point is that there are no human races, and science supports this. there is NO!!! scientific support for human races. you can call anybody, anything, you want, but don't pretend it's science.

do you have alzheimer's disease, because i distinctly remember you calling me an imbecile, unprovoked

I refuted you with every word I've said, the sad part is that you don't understand, or even recognize the refutations.

Look at yourself paulsamuel. Do you think your posturing makes you an authority? Do you think being an authority would compensate you for the real lack you must feel?
Do you secretly fear that if it wasn't for all your good christian, egalitarian ideals that you'd be nothing, prey, weakling? That you just couldn't hack it if it wasn't for social liberalism?
Don't you realize that your petty squabbles on message forums are the closest you'll ever come to winning real conflicts?
Doesn't that make you worried?

Moron, you repeated what I said.
It's an observation. My argument is that the observation is valid.

I don't know what all that means, but I think I can correctly assume that it's an insult, so all I'll say is

"Fuck you!"

Paul 2
Xev 0

 

[jps]

Let me repeat that you would be splitting real biological groups even, families, even brothers and sisters, to satisfy an ARBITRARY!!!! grouping.

what that means, is that i'm calling your designations, caucasian, mongoloid and negroid, arbitrary classifications with NO basis in science

I agree with you, but I'm not sure I really understand your argument, it may be that everyone else here has enough background in genetics to get it, but its hardly framed in laymen's terms.
That being said, my argument may or may not be restating your argument in a simplified way.

There's no denying that people from different geographical regions have distinct traits that seperate them from people from other geographical regions, and that there must be genes that determine these things, as they are passed down from generation to generation. The problem comes when you try and categorize people according to these differences. They can only be arbitrary, as I will try and demonstrate.
Most commonly, these traits are used to categorize people as white, black, asian, etc., but why these groupings? Certainly these are groups that share superficial traits that seperate them from each other, but so do many other groups within them.
The difference between a black person descended from a masai tribe and one descend from a pygmy tribe would certainly be as great as the difference between the average black person and white person, so why not call them distinct races? Similiarly, white people of slavic descent vs. white people of anglo-saxon descent also have noticeable differences from each other, so why not call them distinct races? Such distinctions would, as far as I can tell, be just as valid as the traditional distinctions.

 

[paulsamuel]

Not so. I'll quote me again- THERE ARE NO PUREBREDS.

I don't know what you mean by this, but it appears to be irrelevant.

Its fallous to think of race as wholly exclusive between groups- there is no specific 'gene' that defines race.

no has suggested that there is

True, but she's twenty.

it's amazing how close I came just based on her posts. LOL

However, who the fuck cares if you're a scientist though? Think it can hide this strange scent of 'lack' fanning right off of you?

I don't understand what you mean here. as regards science, if you had a question about say, astronomy, you would probably go get a book, read up on it, and there were some points you wanted clarified, you would probably ask an astronomer for clarification. i don't see a problem with that.

Xev's problem is she already 'knows' everything. She can't be bothered with reading or asking or trying to understand. She already 'knows' everything. I don't think she realizes that when one 'knows' everything, it's the surest obstacle to ever learning anything again.

 

[paulsamuel]

I agree with you, but I'm not sure I really understand your argument, it may be that everyone else here has enough background in genetics to get it, but its hardly framed in laymen's terms.
That being said, my argument may or may not be restating your argument in a simplified way.

There's no denying that people from different geographical regions have distinct traits that seperate them from people from other geographical regions, and that there must be genes that determine these things, as they are passed down from generation to generation. The problem comes when you try and categorize people according to these differences. They can only be arbitrary, as I will try and demonstrate.
Most commonly, these traits are used to categorize people as white, black, asian, etc., but why these groupings? Certainly these are groups that share superficial traits that seperate them from each other, but so do many other groups within them.
The difference between a black person descended from a masai tribe and one descend from a pygmy tribe would certainly be as great as the difference between the average black person and white person, so why not call them distinct races? Similiarly, white people of slavic descent vs. white people of anglo-saxon descent also have noticeable differences from each other, so why not call them distinct races? Such distinctions would, as far as I can tell, be just as valid as the traditional distinctions.

envision it this way.

a large family genealogy from the beginning of time. it looks like a tree, a family tree, branching up and up and up from the beginning of humans to the present. at the end of every branch sits an individual, all of us present here on earth. my point is that there is no characteristic that will group these individuals 'racially.' for example, you take skin color, to group all the blacks, all the whites and all the reds and all the yellows and try to group them based on their family tree, you cannot. you would have to break the family ties. it'd be like, in an auditorium, you put all blondes on one side and all brunettes on the other, you would have to separate brothers and sisters to conform to an arbitrary grouping. if you look at all the human beings and group them strictly STRICTLY by family relatedness (i.e. genetic relatedness) each group would have alll colors of skin, all types of intelligene, all kinds of hair, etc., etc.

 

[Hastein]

Separatist bullshit is for those Himmlerian dwarves with pictures of Nordic gods up in their rooms, blabbing about Hitler's "Holy Grail".

I'm not here to talk about race, but to reply to your comment the Japanese take racial seperatism VERY seriously. If anyone but a native born Japanese citizen enters Japan they are denied citizenship. White/Asian hybrids from WWII are looked upon with a little more dignity (because they use them as entertainment models) but mixing is greatly discouraged. The same goes for Chine and the Koreas, where racism is widespread.

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

Dr. Lou:

No I don't realize anything. You said this once:

"Up up, there's no such thing as race!
You can't ask questions like that" 3-31-04 3:21 p.m.
According to you, this was sarcasm. (You need practice.)

Ha, yeah right. Its not like you should be embarrassed for not picking up on it or anything, of course not
You're the kind of person I'd love to see trip over face first into a dog shit. What would you say? "Apox on this ... shit! "

Paul samuel,
You would not have had to divide brothers and sisters 3000 years ago. So would you say there once was races?
Just because all the races rejoined and intermingled doesn't mean there aren't races. There are just lots of crossbreeds.
Its like branches in the evolutionary tree for humans fused back together. But if you go down there are still branches.
At one stage all humans were in seperate populations, breeding only within that population. And each population inevitably became different.
It was the beginning of evolution and if all the groups stayed seperate for long enough they would have become different species.

If all you've been saying is that race is meaningless in some multicultural city then no shit. Multicultural cities are on their way to becoming their own races, who's origins will stem from the crossbreeding of existing races.

But traditionally, before boating to different continents was possible. There were clearly defined races all over the planet. Races, sub-races, families, etc.

 

[paulsamuel]

Paul samuel,
You would not have had to divide brothers and sisters 3000 years ago. So would you say there once was races?
Just because all the races rejoined and intermingled doesn't mean there aren't races. There are just lots of crossbreeds.
Its like branches in the evolutionary tree for humans fused back together. But if you go down there are still branches.
At one stage all humans were in seperate populations, breeding only within that population. And each population inevitably became different.
It was the beginning of evolution and if all the groups stayed seperate for long enough they would have become different species.

Excellent question!

I don't have the reference, and it would take quite a bit of library research to look up, but I'm fairly certain that the lack of races is not due to recent (in the last 10000 years) migratory events (i.e. mixing). You need to talk to someone that knows a lot more about this stuff (meaning there's a way to determine the age of the shared and unique polymorphisms upon which the analyses are based), unfortunately probably none are willing to waste their time here fighting off people like xev.

So, your question is testable, and for all I know, probably has been tested, but I can't give you the ref. off hand.

If a species does have races, there are some bird examples, and these races mix and co-mingle, then emphatically YES, they are no longer races!

This is a good analogy, "Its like branches in the evolutionary tree for humans fused back together. But if you go down there are still branches." My contention and the scientific evidence are saying that this has been happening throughout!!!! the evolution of humans through migration (mixing), local extinctions and recolonizations.

"At one stage all humans were in seperate populations, breeding only within that population. And each population inevitably became different.
It was the beginning of evolution and if all the groups stayed seperate for long enough they would have become different species."

True, but it takes hundreds of thousands of years, and millions of years for speciation. If it did happen, we would be able to see that today.

If all you've been saying is that race is meaningless in some multicultural city then no shit. Multicultural cities are on their way to becoming their own races, who's origins will stem from the crossbreeding of existing races. "

no I'm not saying that

But traditionally, before boating to different continents was possible. There were clearly defined races all over the planet. Races, sub-races, families, etc.

I don't believe that's true, if you have a scientific reference to support it (i.e. it is a valid hypothesis) then I'd be happy to read it.

 

[15ofthe19]

Wouldn't the population bottleneck caused by the Toba cataclysm make the case for different races extremely difficult to prove?

70,000 years ago there may have only been a few thousand Homo Sapiens alive on the planet anywhere ! That isn't a lot of time for distinct races to evolve is it?

 

[paulsamuel]

Wouldn't the population bottleneck caused by the Toba cataclysm make the case for different races extremely difficult to prove?

70,000 years ago there may have only been a few thousand Homo Sapiens alive on the planet anywhere ! That isn't a lot of time for distinct races to evolve is it?

I would think that racial differentiation would be amplified by population bottlenecks, i.e. that races would be easier to see. If the globe was populated by a number of well differentiated populations (races) and there was a global bottleneck, then genetic variation decreases overall and each population becomes more genetically distinct. As populations increase again, these differences are maintained.

How are you thinking about it?

 

[15ofthe19]

I guess the way I have always picture it, only a handful of tribes survived in a little isolated pocket of the world, and had to band together to make ends meet. Sort of like the way post-apocalyptic movies often portray the survivors. All of that resultant interbreeding would have rendered any differences nill.

I guess I got it backwards, no?

btw paulsamuel, I know shinola about this stuff, but I read a lot about it, and there is one particular documentary about this bottleneck that really got me thinking about this stuff. I think it was on The Science Channel, but can't be sure.

I build shit for a living, so it's fun to discuss subjects that have no relation to my work. Sounds like you've met Xev. She's a hoot. One of those rare humans that apparently just knows everything, and can't be taught a damn thing. That must be nice.

 

[paulsamuel]

I guess the way I have always picture it, only a handful of tribes survived in a little isolated pocket of the world, and had to band together to make ends meet. Sort of like the way post-apocalyptic movies often portray the survivors. All of that resultant interbreeding would have rendered any differences nill.

I guess I got it backwards, no?

btw paulsamuel, I know shinola about this stuff, but I read a lot about it, and there is one particular documentary about this bottleneck that really got me thinking about this stuff. I think it was on The Science Channel, but can't be sure.

I build shit for a living, so it's fun to discuss subjects that have no relation to my work. Sounds like you've met Xev. She's a hoot. One of those rare humans that apparently just knows everything, and can't be taught a damn thing. That must be nice.

ya, the way i picture it is, lay out a map. if there was races, on the map there would be a bunch of isolated populations. during the bottleneck take out randomly 50% of those populations. each remaining population would be more isolated.

 

[15ofthe19]

Well, if the whole Tora bottleneck theory really did happen the way that some explain, and the entire population of the world was down in the thousands, has there been enough time for the species to differentiate into such distincly different sub-species, with regards to appearance?