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Race , has always been defined as groups of people sharing physical ancestry, and therefore physical traits.
Yes, that sums it up well. I think people did always used to think of it in this accurate manner. But somewhere along the line denial became fashionable.
And races differ in phenotype because the differ genetically. And they differ genetically because they are extended families that are somewhat inbred.
I'm not sure why anyone would be confused by that. It is simply the case that America has had a "one drop rule", and Americans are in the habit of classifying anyone who has any visible African ancestry, or merely is claimed to have such ancestry, as "black". Such classification is obviously a social construct and not scientific.
It works much better when we realize that race is about genealogy.
So unless you believe that we don't differ from chimps in any meaningful way, you have to recognize the fact that a very small percentage of genetic variation can be highly significant.
I agree on the bold. But I'd ask you how many races do you think are a part of the homo sapien species?
The typical race denominations that people speak of (including yourself on this post and others) are based primarily on physical appearance/attributes and the socialization of Americans to the "one drop rule" (adherence to the sociological view of what a "race" is - based on appearance primarily or physical features).
I am nearly 30% European genetically - I have done a genetic DNA test. I identify socially as a black American. What percentage of European ancestry do you feel would make someone "white" who has African ancestry? And what do you base this percentage/classification on?
The second paragraph, you were responding to someone who mentioned someone being 15% African being deemed "black." I have extended family members who, like myself, are VERY into genealogical research and over the past 10-20 years genealogical research has become very scientific. Some of my cousins are only 10% African, yet they have visible "African/black" physical characteristics and they identify as black as they were raised culturally with a family that sociologically claimed to be black in America. I also have cousins (who are closer relatives) who are between 15 and 20% African, yet who are blond haired/blue eyed and have no physical characteristics of being African/black. Their grandfather had a falling out with a great uncle of mine and so he never spoke to the family again. He married a white woman even though, he, himself, was multi-racial - you can tell that he does have African/black features in his pictures but most people thought he was Polish (which is funny to me because he had an English surname). His grandchildren consider themselves "white" and never knew of their African/black ancestry until they started a family tree and connected with us - the black family. They still identify as "white" even though from a genetic DNA perspective - they are more African/black than some of my other relatives who identify as "black."
When you bring genealogical and ancestral history into the mix you see that 1 - we are all from Africa, so there is no "non-African" population like you mentioned in a previous post and 2 - haplogroups are not "race" and 3 - ancestry in and of itself is not a "race." There are distinct genetic variances, for instance, in the populations of Europe - who perhaps yourself (which you seem to do in other posts) and others view as being "white." Whites in Finland and whites in Italy are very different from a genetic standpoint. Whites in Spain and whites in Ireland are very genetically different. Same can be said of blacks in Nigeria and blacks in Uganda being very different genetically.
So how do you decide what "race" people are? And how many races do you think there are if you believe that humans have a biological "race."
Some people say "race" is a meaningless term, or that it doesn't exist at all. But if we saw a large group of people comprised of Chinese, Nigerians and Icelanders, we'd be able to sort them accurately, even though no individual looks exactly like any other. It may not be that important, but I think most of us know something real is there. We spend a lot of time here discussing race. But what is it, actually?
Personally, I like Steve Sailer's very simple definition: races are very large extended families that are somewhat inbred. People of the same race look a little alike, and perhaps share some other traits and tendencies, because they are more closely related to each other than to people outside their race.
Human race, that's all.
Journalism in this country identifies Native American and African American, never European American. This is ethnocentric reporting.
Ethnocentric reporting has programed us to think of citizens of Mexico as not being American. They clearly are because they reside on the continent of North America, just like Canadians. (The continent of Asia has 50 countries; Africa has 54 countries; South America has 12; Antarctica has no countries, Europe has 51; Australia has 14.)
Recognizing ethnocentric bias, keeps us from blindly thinking someone is Hispanic when they're actually European American (Spain is in Europe) or South American.
I think the reason why race is inappropriately used, is because students are no longer required to have geography as their core curriculum. And as such, race really is a meaningless term.
Agreed. Race is absolutely biological as facial structure is different across the races. Different orbital eye socket shape, different amount of bone in the nose which determines both width and the protrusion of the nose, different space between the nose and upper lip, different lip spacing and width, different skull shape which surrounds the brain. Under a microscope hair texture is different. A medical examiner or anthropologist could determine the race of a skull in a second just by looking at it. DNA difference is small but when we share 98.5% of our DNA with apes, a small DNA difference can have a significant impact. And many genes are polymorphic. Epigenetics is another thing that even hasn’t been explored in depth.
The problem with whether we are the same species or not is that scientists are inconsistent with how they apply the term. A snake from one species can produce viable offspring who could reproduce with a snake from a different species. Yet “scientists†tell us humans are one species because they can reproduce and produce viable offspring.
On the underlined - how many races do you think there are in the world of humanity?
Do you believe that all Asians have the same type of bone structure. Do you think that all Africans have the same type of bone structure?
As I noted above the Eurasian and African continents include a wide diverse, range of people. An Asian in India is not going to have the same facial structure or skull or bone structure as an Asian from China. So why do you consider both of them to be of the "Asian race" (if you do).
An African from Ethiopia and an African from Zambia are not going to share the same facial, skull, or bone structure as each other either -so why would you consider both of them to be of the (Sub-Saharan) African race.
Note that anthropologists have for years been able to determine the suspected genetic ancestry of populations and the time periods of which they lived. White Americans today have different bone structures versus white Americans 150 years ago - did white people evolve into a new race?
Too often, IMO people see stuff on TV like CSI and other spin offs and think that bone classifications shows race when it really shows population ancestry. Note that anthropologist CAN tell the difference between bones that are Chinese and Vietnamese. They can tell bones between Irish and French. Yet both of the aforementioned groups, sociologically are the same "race."
Brings up the old Arsenio Hall phrase from his old show..."things that make you go hmmmmm...."
the authors support Sauer’s contention that craniometric separation does not confirm traditional racial categories. “Sauer’s additional suggestion that differences in American blacks and whites did not validate the traditional biological race concept is likewise supported by our results†(Ousley et al. 2009:73).
Why? The authors highlight just how many social differences could be discerned by forensic anthropologists. Given an original sample of bones classified into social groups, a forensic anthropologist can with high probability predict to which group another case of bones belong. They can separate Japanese from Chinese from Vietnamese, or northern Japanese from southern Japanese. Or, and perhaps most incredibly, “white males born between 1840 and 1890 can be separated from white males born 1930 to 1980 very well, and they are distinguished by time, and would appear to qualify as different races†(2009:74). Group bones by birth-year, run the statistics, and then introduce a new sample: the sample can be accurately classified, and a new race born every fifty years! Forensic anthropologists sort real physical variation into categories we have made socially relevant. “There are so many possible distinctive biological races that the concept is virtually meaningless.
See blue and pink.
Again, I do a lot of genealogical research including DNA research. I also participate in DNA research studies with large public universities (more than one, hence the ies lol). There is no biological way to sort humans based on race unless we conclude there are thousands of different races of people. The typical sociological separation patterns most employ of our species - Asian, black, white - are not biologically sound separations as even with reviewing bones and skulls there are differences within those 3 sociological categories.
Why are you responding to my post with this response?
What are you trying to tell me exactly that wasn't actually addressed in my post?
I'm quite familiar with human genotypic data as I work with it frequently in my daily job.
What does your job have to do with anything, to include my response? My response was mostly a social commentary with one mention of hominid admixture. My response is my response. Period. I don't owe you an exact response path in-between your goalposts. Are you kidding? Synopsize your prior post and how I didn't answer what you believe your main point to be if you have an issue. Otherwise get out of here with your decontextualized complaint. Stop being lazy with your responses, in merely complaining that I didn't address what you had hoped, or be ignored.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dark Enlightenment
And races differ in phenotype because the differ genetically. And they differ genetically because they are extended families that are somewhat inbred.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HockeyMac18
Yes. And?
"Yes and" what? I and Dark Enlightenment give you responses and you simply imply that we are not responding. You had better describe your issues with our responses, to include a rehash of the pertinent post-reply chain, or disabuse yourself of the notion that merely asking how an effortful response is relevant is a rhetorically valid response. You have to describe how the responses are irrelevant. We aren't mind readers and we aren't going to pick up your labor because you are too lazy to explain your issue.
The problem arises when you attempt to attach the term "race" to those scientific endeavors. It is nearly impossible to disconnect the concept of race from its societal definitions, most often quite imprecise and arbitrary in nature through the course of human history.
Sociopolitically tainted blather. Modern anthropology is a joke "science" for this exact reason.
Sociopolitically tainted blather. Modern anthropology is a joke "science" for this exact reason.
Good thing I'm not talking about anthropology.
Try attaching "race" categories (which are societal-defined, as I stated, often in arbitrary and imprecise ways) to all clusters in whole genome sequence-derived SNP/INDEL data. Good luck.
I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding what I'm stating. Your posts are oddly combative and don't actually respond to what I'm writing (and sometimes they just agree with what I wrote, but are phrased in a way to imply disagreement).
Calm down - it's not that serious. It's a freaking message board.
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