Does RACE exist?

[Japher]

I think to answer whether or not race really exists you have to look at the genetic level, and look only at facts. Looking at opinions that form social constructs and yield to identification factors based on perception only skew the findings.

I believe that god is a social construct developed from perceptions and identification factors. Does that have anything to do with whether god exists or not? No.

On the genetic level, I feel that race does exist as a distinguishing factor. Maybe not greater of a factor that exists between male and female, but significant enough to cause those in the medical profession to lable specific medication as being less reactive to people of certain nationalities and to permit certain races to be more subseptive to certain diseases (hep c for example).

[Guest]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I dont know who Albert Jacquard is, or what a distance function between individuals in many-dimension space is, but I do know that I spend a large part of my day thinking about human and bacterial genes in disease. Given how few genes we actually know anything about, I have to wonder just how deep the bull**** is in many-dimension space!

Everything looks complicated when you don't know about it.
To someone in 1650, genes seemed about as bull****-full as you could go don't you think?
What about these atoms, LOL!!
Say you graph a distribution of ppl along a characteristic say height.
Wo we have a graph reprensenting how many ppl are of each height, sort of like a bar-graph.
Now do the same thing for 2 characteristics.
Now you would need 3 dimensions. Like you see on TV or computer sometimes, a plane, with bars above it.
Do the same with more characteristics and yeah you got multi dimensional distribution of ppl.
etc..

You dont need to know anything about genes to understand this, which is a point ppl often miss about mathematics.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Japher
I think to answer whether or not race really exists you have to look at the genetic level, and look only at facts. Looking at opinions that form social constructs and yield to identification factors based on perception only skew the findings.

I believe that god is a social construct developed from perceptions and identification factors. Does that have anything to do with whether god exists or not? No.

On the genetic level, I feel that race does exist as a distinguishing factor. Maybe not greater of a factor that exists between male and female, but significant enough to cause those in the medical profession to lable specific medication as being less reactive to people of certain nationalities and to permit certain races to be more subseptive to certain diseases (hep c for example).

Japher contributed a serious post to a thread?

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by LulThyme

You dont need to know anything about genes to understand this, which is a point ppl often miss about mathematics.

Though not a mathematician, I was being facetious about not understanding the concept of multi-dimension analysis. We've used principle component analysis to describe some of my work. A mathematical model is only as good as the data used to create it. If you know nothing about genes, how good will the model be? I can easily name 10 genes (or expressions of unknown genes) that would define a huge segment of an african population compared to say a northern european one. Perhaps Albert Jacquard was unaware of them?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


Since you responded to my little troll there like a silly old trout leaping for a fly, I would say not

A fan of revisionism, I see.

When in doubt, claim a crappy rejoinder is a troll. Does Emperor Alexander have any new clothes today?

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I asked what the biological definition of race was in class. My teacher told me that race was non-interbreeding members of the same species. Since all of the supposed races of humanity interbreed, it seems that this definition hardly fits us.

Come on man! That is obviously a false definition of race. Nobody (except crazy people like your teacher) would ever seriously think that to be an accurate definition because practically nobody understands it to mean that.

[chequita guevara]

In that case, race is solely a social category. I win, you lose.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Caligastia


Come on man! That is obviously a false definition of race. Nobody (except crazy people like your teacher) would ever seriously think that to be an accurate definition because practically nobody understands it to mean that.

And nobody but a crazy person would believe that being born to African parents makes you less intelligent or cultured than if you were born to, say, Faroese or Italian parents.

Or that Jews spread typhus and eat gentile children because they're Jews and that's what the 'Jewish race' does.

People will believe the craziest things.

[Guest]

Originally posted by SpencerH


Though not a mathematician, I was being facetious about not understanding the concept of multi-dimension analysis. We've used principle component analysis to describe some of my work. A mathematical model is only as good as the data used to create it. If you know nothing about genes, how good will the model be? I can easily name 10 genes (or expressions of unknown genes) that would define a huge segment of an african population compared to say a northern european one. Perhaps Albert Jacquard was unaware of them?

Go ahead.
They would not 'define" im almost certain
yes there propable be a very big statiscal difference between the populations.
But I am certain that there would be thousand of Africans closer to the european average for this gene than thousands of Europeans, which is what weve been saying.
Skin colour an example.
I know there are veryspecific examples, like some proteins in the blood and so and so.
But if we take the populations beforhand, say africans or europeans, or to make it easier for you Tuti and Irish, you would be hard press to find 10 genes that DEFINE Them (as in all tutis are in your boundary, and no danish, no exception).

your claim is basically taht you could declare if someone is african or european based on jsut looking at 10 genes with 100% accuracy.
We both know this to be extreme.
Where we might disagree, is that even if you try to restrict it to something a bit more particular like anything commonly viewed as a race or an ethny (tutis or whatever), this test will still fail to reach 100%.
That you could reach in the high 98-99 I agree.
But then just looking at skin colou might work but we all see where the problem is, that is not a definition, just a statistical difference.

[Alexander's Horse]

The only area I can see race as a real factor is sport. Different races excel at different events because of physical difference.

For example, swimming is dominated by caucasians because of muscular adaption for endurance.

[Dr Strangelove]

I'm certain that race exists. NASCAR is really big around here.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
The only area I can see race as a real factor is sport. Different races excel at different events because of physical difference.

For example, swimming is dominated by caucasians because of muscular adaption for endurance.

And has nothing to do with wealth and poverty, and the distribution of swimming facilities in non-Western white dominated industrialized societies.

Yawn.

Whites must be 'naturally' better at tennis then.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by LulThyme

Go ahead.
They would not 'define" im almost certain
yes there propable be a very big statiscal difference between the populations.
But I am certain that there would be thousand of Africans closer to the european average for this gene than thousands of Europeans, which is what weve been saying.
Skin colour an example.
I know there are veryspecific examples, like some proteins in the blood and so and so.
But if we take the populations beforhand, say africans or europeans, or to make it easier for you Tuti and Irish, you would be hard press to find 10 genes that DEFINE Them (as in all tutis are in your boundary, and no danish, no exception).

your claim is basically taht you could declare if someone is african or european based on jsut looking at 10 genes with 100% accuracy.
We both know this to be extreme.
Where we might disagree, is that even if you try to restrict it to something a bit more particular like anything commonly viewed as a race or an ethny (tutis or whatever), this test will still fail to reach 100%.
That you could reach in the high 98-99 I agree.
But then just looking at skin colou might work but we all see where the problem is, that is not a definition, just a statistical difference.

100% accuracy would be impossible based on our limited knowledge of our genes (to date). It's ridiculus to boldly assert though that we could not find such differences. Would it to surprise you that in my own work I was able to identify (blinded) every african american in a small population of 30 or so test subjects based upon some gene products I was studying. Race is a subjective definition, so yes I could easily define a set of genetic characteristics that defines tutsis from gaels.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
In that case, race is solely a social category. I win, you lose.

Not so fast.

What you seem to be saying is that either your biology teacher's definition of race is correct or race is a social construct. You ignore the definition that almost everyone understands - that race refers to a group of people with similar characteristics. Either you are doing this intentionally or you just haven't thought this through.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by molly bloom



And nobody but a crazy person would believe that being born to African parents makes you less intelligent or cultured than if you were born to, say, Faroese or Italian parents.

Or that Jews spread typhus and eat gentile children because they're Jews and that's what the 'Jewish race' does.

People will believe the craziest things.

I completely agree with everything you said here.