Race discussion with Big.Thirsty

[Leigh]

From a separate thread the following points were made:

* I made the claim that race is a social construct.

* @Big.Thirsty countered that it is also a biological classification.

* I asked him to explain the differences between the classifications.

* He posted the following link and excerpt:

NYT Science Editor: Race Is Real

The three principal races are Africans (those who live south of the Sahara), East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans), and Caucasians (Europeans and the peoples of the Near East and the Indian subcontinent). In each of these races, a different set of genes has been changed by natural selection. This is just what would be expected for populations that had to adapt to different challenges on each continent.The genes specially affected by natural selection control not only expected traits like skin color and nutritional metabolism, but also some aspects of brain function. Though the role of these selected brain genes is not yet understood, the obvious truth is that genes affecting the brain are just as much subject to natural selection as any other category of gene.

* I questioned classifying Europeans and Indians together by a method that uses skin colour as one if its metrics.

Waiting for his rebuttal, noting that it is bed time where he is.

 

[Robbie Hart]

@Big.Thirsty is fucked as Leigh tends to be obsessed when he thinks he's right. Pack a lunch thirst.....

 

[DFW4L]

thanks, going offline but I suggest these articles as a primer:

Race and genetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most relevant excerpt (most relevant to my position):

Most physical anthropologists consider race to be primarily a social category that does not correspond significantly with biological variation, but some anthropologists, particularly forensic anthropologists, consider race a useful biological category. They argue that it is possible to determine race from physical remains with a reasonable degree of certainty; what is identified is the geographic phenotype. Medical practitioners also sometimes argue that racial categories can be used successfully as proxies to assess risk of those different heritable illnesses that occur with different frequencies among populations of different geographic ancestries.

NYT Science Editor: Race Is Real

A longstanding orthodoxy among social scientists holds that human races are a social construct and have no biological basis. A related assumption is that human evolution halted in the distant past, so long ago that evolutionary explanations need never be considered by historians or economists.

In the decade since the decoding of the human genome, a growing wealth of data has made clear that these two positions, never at all likely to begin with, are simply incorrect. There is indeed a biological basis for race....

Sociobiology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (super inflammatory)

Sociobiologists believe that human behavior, as well as nonhuman animal behavior, can be partly explained as the outcome of natural selection. They contend that in order to fully understand behavior, it must be analyzed in terms of evolutionary considerations.

Natural selection is fundamental to evolutionary theory. Variants of hereditary traits which increase an organism's ability to survive and reproduce will be more greatly represented in subsequent generations, i.e., they will be "selected for". Thus, inherited behavioral mechanisms that allowed an organism a greater chance of surviving and/or reproducing in the past are more likely to survive in present organisms. That inherited adaptive behaviors are present in nonhuman animal species has been multiply demonstrated by biologists, and it has become a foundation of evolutionary biology. However, there is continued resistance by some researchers over the application of evolutionary models to humans, particularly from within the social sciences, where culture has long been assumed to be the predominant driver of behavior.


-

acknowledging in advance there are a billion links/sources that will suggest I, and Nick Wade, are idiot 'climate change denier' types

 

[DFW4L]

@Big.Thirsty is fucked as Leigh tends to be obsessed when he thinks he's right. Pack a lunch thirst.....

His position is supported by decades of copious amounts of social science and also a TON of actual biology and other sciences, no doubt

 

[1372]

 

[Robbie Hart]

 

[1372]

@Big.Thirsty is fucked as Leigh tends to be obsessed when he thinks he's right. Pack a lunch thirst.....

Hey Throb.

Your a bitch.

Now pack Leighs lunch.

Be back soon...Need to grab beer.

 

[1372]

Hey Throb.

Your a bitch.

Now pack Leighs lunch.

Be back soon...Need to grab beer.

Grab something for Big Thirsty too.

Bitch

 

[Leigh]

thanks, going offline but I suggest these articles as a primer:

Race and genetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NYT Science Editor: Race Is Real

Sociobiology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (super inflammatory)

acknowledging in advance there are a billion links/sources that will suggest I, and Nick Wade, are idiot 'climate change denier' types

Ok. As discussed, I don't want to be link spammed but look forward to you posting the relevant excerpts.

@Big.Thirsty is fucked as Leigh tends to be obsessed when he thinks he's right. Pack a lunch thirst.....

This is true but I am also open minded. If the argument and/or evidence is compelling, I can change my mind. It's how I came to my current position - I used to believe race was physical but got owned in a discussion and was prompted to research it myself.

 

[Left Hook Larry]

 

[Left Hook Larry]

i wouldn't touch this debate with a 10 foot pole but i'll read it.

 

[1372]

@Big.Thirsty is fucked as Leigh tends to be obsessed when he thinks he's right. Pack a lunch thirst.....

Back

And I noticed the way you called him thirst.... Cute....

@Big.Thirsty

Do not allow throbert to hang from you...He is like a dangleberry you can not break from your arse hair.

Throb.

HA!

 

[1372]

i wouldn't touch this debate with a 10 foot pole but i'll read it.

Im here to pick on Robbie.

And he hates it when I don't tag him in.

 

[Robbie Hart]

This thread (with the exception of mieshas taint) involves way too much thought and makes my head hurt.....

 

[DFW4L]

Ok. As discussed, I don't want to be link spammed but look forward to you posting the relevant excerpts.

I updated my first post

 

[DFW4L]

i wouldn't touch this debate with a 10 foot pole but i'll read it.

I am fully expecting a marxist to physically attack me, lol

P.S: FU Genki Sudo!

(update: Just remembered Leigh fought him, that is not my reference, my reference is to his banner)

 

[1372]

I like @Leigh

For one...He has balls.

That's a wrap.

Impressive to me anyway.

 

[Left Hook Larry]

I like @Leigh

For one...He has balls.

That's a wrap.

Impressive to me anyway.

Throb has balls too but they are protected with a chastity belt and his wife has the key

 

[Leigh]

]Race and genetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most relevant excerpt (most relevant to my position):

Most physical anthropologists consider race to be primarily a social category that does not correspond significantly with biological variation, but some anthropologists, particularly forensic anthropologists, consider race a useful biological category. They argue that it is possible to determine race from physical remains with a reasonable degree of certainty; what is identified is the geographic phenotype. Medical practitioners also sometimes argue that racial categories can be used successfully as proxies to assess risk of those different heritable illnesses that occur with different frequencies among populations of different geographic ancestries.

Comments like, "Medical practitioners also sometimes argue" aren't really applicable unless accompanied with a reasoning or evidence. It's simply an appeal to authority.

Additionally, determining race from remains doesn't prove race is real. You can determine from genes where a person likely lived and cross reference that with the race of the people that live there. All you're doing is linking to a group of people, not the race itself.

 

[DFW4L]

Comments like, "Medical practitioners also sometimes argue" aren't really applicable unless accompanied with a reasoning or evidence. It's simply an appeal to authority.

The intro to that wikipedia page is poorly sourced, this is a relevant source to that point (as is sickle cell anaemia)...

The Whole Side of It—An Interview with Neil Risch

 

[Leigh]

NYT Science Editor: Race Is Real

A longstanding orthodoxy among social scientists holds that human races are a social construct and have no biological basis. A related assumption is that human evolution halted in the distant past, so long ago that evolutionary explanations need never be considered by historians or economists.

In the decade since the decoding of the human genome, a growing wealth of data has made clear that these two positions, never at all likely to begin with, are simply incorrect. There is indeed a biological basis for race....

And that is.....?

Yes people have adapted to their environment, I accept that. Europeans adapted to higher latitudes etc. However, these adaptions are general and cannot definitively be used to classify people - the variations in these adaptions is larger within a race than between them.

 

[DFW4L]

And that is.....?

come on dude, you are reading the first two paragraphs of a multiple page article then suggesting it lacks appropriate detail?

 

[Leigh]

The intro to that wikipedia page is poorly sourced, this is a relevant source to that point (as is sickle cell anaemia)...

The Whole Side of It—An Interview with Neil Risch

Sickle cell anemia also occurs in Europeans. Whilst the incidence of occurrence is less common than in Africans, it demonstrates that race is not definitively proven by sickle cell.

 

[DFW4L]

race is not definitive.

absolutely not, that is absolutely not my position (nor the one taken in any of the sources I linked to with possible exception of Ed Wilson (sociobiology)

 

[Leigh]

come on dude, you are reading the first two paragraphs of a multiple page article then suggesting it lacks appropriate detail?

I'm suggesting you are not posting the appropriate detail. You're simply posting that some researchers think this. That's not a conclusive argument. Post the actual information that supports your point. An appeal to authority does not do that.