Do Human Races Exist?

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Do Human Races Exist?

C0nc0rdance: batting the race question out of the park

By Randall Gross

Science • September 2011 • Views: 1,421

Youtube Video

One of the best expositions on why race is irrelevant that I’ve seen, and just another reason why I always have to snicker when I see or hear “scientific racialists’ like Derbyshire, Spencer, and the rest of that hateful VDARE/AMREN crowd espousing their ridiculous theories on race and tribes.

My haplogroupist joke:

Q: How do you get a drink out of a haplogroup C person?

A: Stick your finger down their throat. The cheap bast-erds.

(see, it doesn’t work)

More about haplogroups:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=haplogroup

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16 comments

FemNaziBitch Sep 17, 2011 2:39:28pm

I always understood that “race” referred to “homo sapien” as oppossed to “homo erectus” etc.

Species: Human
Race: sapien

The way it is used now would be like saying that a German Sheperd Dog is a different “race” from a Shitzu. Which is ridiculous.

lostlakehiker Sep 17, 2011 4:01:11pm

re: #1 ggt

I always understood that “race” referred to “homo sapien” as oppossed to “homo erectus” etc.

Species: Human
Race: sapien

The way it is used now would be like saying that a German Sheperd Dog is a different “race” from a Shitzu. Which is ridiculous.

That’s not what the words mean. While “classifying” Tiger Woods is impossible, and the whole idea of classifying people into “races” as though everybody fits in one bin is nuts, there are, nevertheless, corners in the diagram. When somebody checks their race box on the census, they’re estimating which “corner” their ancestry puts them nearest.

And if they’re more nearly in the middle, there’s a box for that too. And if they’re sort of toward the middle but not right in it, well, “classification” is a weak concept. But the census question isn’t entirely meaningless. A lot of people can figure out what the most sensible answer is for them.

Fairly Sure I'm Still Obdicut Sep 17, 2011 4:12:55pm

re: #2 lostlakehiker

It’s really only got social meaning, though. A black person who has Crohn’s disease is more similar to a white person with Crohn’s disease than other black people, from a phenotypic perspective. And a well-fed Asian and a well-fed African will be more closely related than they would be to a malnourished person of their same ‘race’, phenotypically.

Race is not a coherent term in the way we use it. In the biological sense, as the above video shows, it is about these overlapping fields of ancestry that doesn’t really say a damn thing about your important genetic makeup; at the most, it’ll cast some probabilities, not certainties, about what particular alleles you have related to your immune system or trivial things like physical appearance.

Race is a social construct, not a biological one.

OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin Sep 17, 2011 5:24:48pm

Probably not. But hangups about perceived difference sure do.

How many people have gone to war, killed, and died (and also thrived and prospered without merit) over this crud.

aagcobb Sep 17, 2011 6:13:15pm

re: #2 lostlakehiker

That’s not what the words mean. While “classifying” Tiger Woods is impossible, and the whole idea of classifying people into “races” as though everybody fits in one bin is nuts, there are, nevertheless, corners in the diagram. When somebody checks their race box on the census, they’re estimating which “corner” their ancestry puts them nearest.

And if they’re more nearly in the middle, there’s a box for that too. And if they’re sort of toward the middle but not right in it, well, “classification” is a weak concept. But the census question isn’t entirely meaningless. A lot of people can figure out what the most sensible answer is for them.

My wife is a red head who can’t tan; she just gets a sunburn and freckles. I talked her into checking the “Native American” box on the census, because her 12th great-grandmother was Pocahontas.

Decatur Deb Sep 17, 2011 6:59:38pm

Does race exist?

Anthropologist: “No”

Sociologist: “Yes”

Lawyer: “Damn straight”

Bob Levin Sep 17, 2011 7:41:22pm

I tend to view the concept as another bit of Enlightenment classification science—almost a pseudoscience, where folks invent a classification and then call this construct a ‘fact’.

Two names to try to remember:

François Bernier

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

docproto48 Sep 17, 2011 8:24:40pm

THE HUMAN RACE, thats it

OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin Sep 18, 2011 12:05:16am

re: #5 aagcobb

My wife is a red head who can’t tan; she just gets a sunburn and freckles. I talked her into checking the “Native American” box on the census, because her 12th great-grandmother was Pocahontas.

9_9 Everybody’s 12th great grandmother was Pocahontas.

But this is why Indian tribes have such a complex about blood quantum and purity - non-Indians, especially whites, thinking they can get government bennies or landgrabbing, or hoodwinking the government into getting some vague benefit for nothing, because they are supposedly 1/1076th “indian”.

It leads to anxieties like crap over the Cherokee Freedmen getting kicked off of tribal membership roles. It may seem a joke to whites but it’s not to us.

OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin Sep 18, 2011 12:08:25am

re: #6 Decatur Deb

Does race exist?

Anthropologist: “No”

Sociologist: “Yes”

Lawyer: “Damn straight”

Confederate: I was told white males are supposed to rule everyone else. It’s discriminating against me if I’m denied my natural rights.

(I Stand By What I Said Whatever It Was) Sep 18, 2011 1:21:34am

But this is why [ethnically homogenous populations exclusively providing the members of governments] have such a complex about blood quantum and purity - non-[members of that specific ethnicity] thinking they can get government bennies or landgrabbing, or hoodwinking the government into getting some vague benefit for nothing, because they are supposedly 1/1076th “[specific ethnicity]”.

FTFY

No different from, say, Germans, in that respect.

lostlakehiker Sep 18, 2011 11:34:06am

re: #3 Obdicut

It’s really only got social meaning, though. A black person who has Crohn’s disease is more similar to a white person with Crohn’s disease than other black people, from a phenotypic perspective. And a well-fed Asian and a well-fed African will be more closely related than they would be to a malnourished person of their same ‘race’, phenotypically.

Race is not a coherent term in the way we use it. In the biological sense, as the above video shows, it is about these overlapping fields of ancestry that doesn’t really say a damn thing about your important genetic makeup; at the most, it’ll cast some probabilities, not certainties, about what particular alleles you have related to your immune system or trivial things like physical appearance.

Race is a social construct, not a biological one.

So, would you say it’s equally likely that two Americans, raised as foster children, one of Tibetan ancestry and one of Tongan ancestry, can handle 5000 meters elevation, after acclimation, without oxygen or diamox?

There are real, biological differences between population averages, when it comes to things like adaptations to altitude, to sunlight or lack thereof, to nose shapes and how those fit in with prevailing humidity, to the availability of salt, or lack thereof, to where and how much adipose tissue is deposited when food is ample, to adult lactose tolerance, to ability to digest starch, to immune system adaptations to malaria and other diseases, and much more.

Fairly Sure I'm Still Obdicut Sep 18, 2011 3:29:43pm

re: #12 lostlakehiker

So, would you say it’s equally likely that two Americans, raised as foster children, one of Tibetan ancestry and one of Tongan ancestry, can handle 5000 meters elevation, after acclimation, without oxygen or diamox?

No.

There are real, biological differences between population averages, when it comes to things like adaptations to altitude, to sunlight or lack thereof, to nose shapes and how those fit in with prevailing humidity, to the availability of salt, or lack thereof, to where and how much adipose tissue is deposited when food is ample, to adult lactose tolerance, to ability to digest starch, to immune system adaptations to malaria and other diseases, and much more.

So what? That doesn’t mean that ‘race’ suddenly has a coherent meaning.

What’s your point?

Fairly Sure I'm Still Obdicut Sep 18, 2011 3:31:07pm

re: #12 lostlakehiker

Here’s a good challenge: Construct a biological definition of race.

Decatur Deb Sep 18, 2011 3:37:25pm

re: #14 Obdicut

Here’s a good challenge: Construct a biological definition of race.

We used definitions in 1960’s Anthropology. The critical characteristic was breeding isolation, thus it didn’t fit the sociological and legal definitions we use in the street. (There were attempts to describe a lot of ‘races’ based on invisible characteristics like chemical tolerances, but again, they tripped over isolation. Sailing ship + paved road = no race.)

Fairly Sure I'm Still Obdicut Sep 18, 2011 3:46:12pm

re: #15 Decatur Deb

The ironic thing is that the only marginally useful or coherent way to talk about race is in terms of probabilities, as in, the probability that offspring will have certain genes. However, an offspring could be born with very few of the genes that are likely for that race to have and still obviously be part of that race— if not, what race are they part of?

So the only marginally coherent definition of race can never be applied to individuals; you can never say that a person is or is not part of a race using it.

Otherwise, all you’re doing is listing a set of adaptations which may be present in completely genetically isolated groups. The same high altitude adaption may spring up in a mountainous people in Asia as in North America— does that mean that they’re now of the same ‘race’? Obviously not.

Even in species biology, there’s no bright line. Coyotes and wolves turn out to have highly mixed genetics, can interbreed just fine, but are still separate species. There are other species that are very closely related genetically but can’t breed, and some that are quite distantly related— like tigers and lions— that can breed. What ability to produce viable offspring really shows is the likelihood of those species diverging farther in the future; it doesn’t really speak to the current divergence. It is possible that wolves may be completely subsumed into the coyote population; but their genes would live on in that population.

Really, it comes down to the Dawkins view of genes as the unit of replication, not the individual. As soon as you really grasp that and the extended phenotype, biology looks vastly different; it’s not about species competing to survive, but genes competing with each other.

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