PBS lies in an attempt to prove that race does not exist

[Arrian]

....

Wtf was Eddie Izzard doing again? Testing for DNA evidence of a division between Danelaw & Wessex?

Cake or Death?

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Good one LotM! A very creative way of demonstrating the shallow nature of the concept of "race." (and using your example of blood type, it would be easy to port my earlier questions to this new format and ask them....with the effect being that it quickly becomes painfully obvious that the answer is..."it doesn't matter" ) (ex: "What if Japher (AB+) got a pint of LotM's blood?...would he still be considered a member of the AB+ band, or would he join the O gang?")

"Race" is something that we (the HUMAN Race) have spent far too much time and energy on. It is, in the final analysis, a categorization effort that has 1) utterly failed to do anything but promote misery, and 2) not shed the first bit of positive light on the human condition, and so is best seen for what it is, and dispensed with entire.

There are, in our singular HUMAN race, tribes, ethnic groups, and pigmentation variations, and cultural differences, and these have, and continue to be "good enough" excuses for us to kill each other without inventing the construct of "different races" to provide us with further reasons.

Maybe one day we'll grow up....as a race....

-=Vel=-

[Jaguar]

Certainly race exists in that a hispanic man and a hispanic woman will have a kid that looks hispanic. You can't argue with that.

You also can't dispute there are differences - that East African people, or people of East African descent win marathons all the time.

However, you can easily argue that facial topography and skin color have nothing to do with the discrepancy stated above.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Azazel
Woohoo! Go South American Women! You showed them in the Miss Universe contest were the prettiest girls live!

South American women

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior

South American women

Japan should've won.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000


Japan should've won.

What? Not Russia?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
Certainly race exists in that a hispanic man and a hispanic woman will have a kid that looks hispanic. You can't argue with that.

A mexican man and a mexican woman will have kids who look Puerto Rican??? i dont think so.

OTOH, a brown skinned man and a brown skinned woman will have kids with brown skin. Probably.

And an o type man and o type woman will have kids who are o type. 100% certain.

And a tall man and a tall woman will have kids who are tall - probably, holding constant for enviroment.

So which is "race" ?? skin color??? blood type??? Height??? instead of saying that whites are a race, with tall and short subgroups, why not say that tall people are a race, with black and white subgroups??


All youve demonstrated above is that children resemble their parents in heritable charecteristics. The notion of "race" is that there are large human groups, who share common ancestry to such a degree, that they have a wide range of charecteristics in common. IE that the heritable charecteristics correlate strongly with each other, and correlate with social group and geography.

And that is precisly what is contested. In some cases lack of correlation is explained by geography - sweden and Nigeria may both have relative tall populatios, as compared to Spain, yet it is not generally contested that Spanish and swedes are "closer" in origin than swedes and Nigerians, because of known facts of history and geography - But heritable blood types are distributed all around the world, among different skin colors, with no clear explanation in most cases. One can say that the "black race" includes people with A, B and O genes, as does the "white race" one cant explain how these different "families" ended up with the same blood type genes. One can as easily say that there are A, B and O races, and that modern africans are descended from a mix of those races, who all tended to evolve toward darker skin over the years. Ditto modern europeans are descended from THE SAME three races, who all lightened up over the years. This would contradict the implicit assumption of "race" that peoples with different modern day geographic origin are relatively homogenous as far as important inherited traits.

[Japher]

What? Not Russia?

I don't discriminate between women, if their hot their hot

---

All youve demonstrated above is that children resemble their parents in heritable charecteristics.

followed by

The notion of "race" is that there are large human groups, who share common ancestry to such a degree, that they have a wide range of charecteristics in common.

Can you show me how these two are different? Sounds the same to me.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Japher


I don't discriminate between women, if their hot their hot

---



followed by

The notion of "race" is that there are large human groups, who share common ancestry to such a degree, that they have a wide range of charecteristics in common. [/quote]

Can you show me how these two are different? Sounds the same to me. [/QUOTE]

one is a statement about individual inheritance - the other is a statement about large groups.


Example - in california, there are people whose greatgrandparents migrated from New york, Illinois, virginia.

A given individual with 2 brown eyed parents likely will have brown eyes. such will be the case whether his parents are from new york, illinois, or virginia. or a combination. the average percentages with brown eyes may differ for each state. nonetheless no one would call being a "new Yorker" a race. Nor would they call being brown eyed a "race" - its just a charecteristic. Now if most New yorkers shared a common ancestry, and had a wide variety traits in common, perhaps you could identify a "new york" race. In fact, however you cant. as can plainly be seen, most traits differ much more within populations descended from these states, than between them.

Now for new york, illinois, and virginia, substiture Europe, africa, and asia (or whatever division of human geography you prefer) For almost all significant traits the same holds true - differences within any particular population grouping are greater than those between groupings. only exceptions are those like pigmentation, for which there was local selection.

Now how is this POSSIBLE, you might ask, if children resemble there parents??? think again of new york, illinois and virginia. If each had been settled by one male and one female, then indeed new yorkers would differ from illinoisan and virginians on a wide range of traits - and their descendents in Calif similarly. However we know historically that those 3 states were settled by many different people from different places, and at different times. Well guess what - that applies to Asia, Africa, and europe as well. Europe was probably originally settled by migrants out of Africa 100,000 years ago - but not by one couple, but by several, with a range of genes. And there was a further in migration from the middle east, associated with the expansion of agriculture, around 6000 BC. And yet another with the Indo-european expansion. And various movements associated with the Roman empire. and various movements in from inner asia - huns, mongols, etc. And movements associated with the islamic empire.

So europe (for example) resembles "new york" more than you might expect - and so its no surprise that europeans have considerable genetic diversity - and thus that the "white race" turns out not to be particularly distinct genetically, and thus NOT a race - any more that O postive people, or people with large ear lobes, or whatever, are a race.

[Japher]

I agree, or can see, what you are saying LotM, but if it applies on an individual level, and a society is made up of a number of individuals why can it not scale up to a "race" baring level?

guess what - that applies to Asia, Africa, and europe as well. Europe was probably originally settled by migrants out of Africa 100,000 years ago - but not by one couple, but by several, with a range of genes. And there was a further in migration from the middle east, associated with the expansion of agriculture, around 6000 BC. And yet another with the Indo-european expansion. And various movements associated with the Roman empire. and various movements in from inner asia - huns, mongols, etc. And movements associated with the islamic empire.

Yet, you can't deny the differences that still exist. Origin has nothing to do with current status of being from a certain race, that depends on the linear ascension of these people. Granted that as the ability to travel great distances increased terrain features became less predominant as a racial determinant factor, but that was only recently (relativly) that such travel existed. Races existed prior to that (as some may believe), intervention only further blurred the lines of race, or in many case changed the perception of that race.

Another thing, why is it so common an idea that all human life began in one, and only one spot? If Earth was the ideal place for such evolution to take place could not be just as probable that occured in multiple places on the planet? Highly unlikely I am sure, but it was also highly unlikely that humans would even evolve into what we are today...

All I am looking at as that in order to determine origion answers that real DNA studies need to take place. Especially with all the migrations, inbreeding, genocide, and development phases that humans have undergone since the history of time. The answers are there, but it seems to find that answer one will have to ask some pretty ugly questions.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000
Japan should've won.

What? You are blind man. The best woman won! DR!DR!

We should all be able to agree that Serbia and Montenegro was a monumental ditz.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Japher
I agree, or can see, what you are saying LotM, but if it applies on an individual level, and a society is made up of a number of individuals why can it not scale up to a "race" baring level?

as a statistical phenomenon? sure. but thats not a race. I have brown eyes. My daughter has brown eyes. Say 50% of my adult neighbors have brown eyes. Odds are 50% of the kids born in my neighborhood will have brown eyes. So does that make my neighborhood a "race"? if that is so race does exist, but its not a particularly meaningful concept. Surely you mean something more then that when you say race is a concept.

What i think you mean is that in the past places experienced less in migration than my 21st c US neighborhood. Everybody lived in the same little valley for thousands of years, by which point they not only shared the same pigmentation, but blood type, and most other traits as well. "mixing" is therefore a recent phenomenon.

and it is that idea that is false. People may have been less mobile then today, but given the pace of genetic change, they did NOT stay in their little valley long enough to become homogeneous across most traits. nomadism and migration have been around for a VERY long time. if race was ever a meaningful category, it ceased to be one before the modern "racial groupings" were identified.

[Wernazuma III]

Just some random thoughts about race:

Of course, different human population all over the world have different features and in certain areas certain parts of the common human genetic pool are more or less frequent. The question whether these specific (and compared to our complete genetic data neglectible) differences are considered of bigger or less importance can never be solved BUT
race definitely is a social construct as the overlapping of specific genetic particularities go well over race "boundaries". There simply is no way to scientifically draw clear lines between the races, not even fuzzy ones. Scientific races would require such thing as a "pure races", which would mean completely different sets of genes which could be only "impurified" or "mixed" but this is simply not the case. The differences within the total human population are fluent, several sub-populations seperated from each other one time more evident to the eye sometimes less, but never clear-cut and even less by criteria which could be scientifically isolated.
Thus defining a "race" is a social construct and like many social constructs, it is based on some observations and not completely voluntary, but it lacks scientific parameters to become an objective "truth".

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
Certainly race exists in that a hispanic man and a hispanic woman will have a kid that looks hispanic. You can't argue with that.

You don't get out much. Let's see, "Hispanic" man and Hispanic woman have kid: You can get fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes, or nearly black. There's as much variation here in Mexico as there is anywhere in the US or Europe.

[/quote]
You also can't dispute there are differences - that East African people, or people of East African descent win marathons all the time.

However, you can easily argue that facial topography and skin color have nothing to do with the discrepancy stated above. [/QUOTE]

There are tubby short east Africans who can't run for ****.

[Caligastia]

Re: Re: PBS lies in an attempt to prove that race does not exist

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Sheets in the laundry tonight? Got a couple of holes in the pillowcase?

Natch. This is of course the case with anyone who challenges the current orthodoxy on race. We're all klansmen out ta git ya!! Boo!

You sure are obsessive about this subject. Or just your choice of trolls and you're pulling everyone's chain for the umpteenth time?

Obsessive? I haven't posted a race thread for months. This must be a topic you find challenging.

Mitochondrial DNA is used extensively to document genetic differences between populations of individuals. Race is an alleged group characteristic, so DNA common to entire populations (mitochondrial) is more useful than cellular DNA.

That's just dandy, but it has nothing to do with the fact that mitochondrial DNA is totally useless for determining race at the individual level, or for comparing the racial ancestry of one individual to another. Do you see how this relates to the TV program I mentioned or do I need to simplify things for you?