[layman]

Race doesn't exist biologically, nothing to prove that.

Classic racial theories are debunked. You are right there.

However, there are group traits that you can refer to as "race" or "ethnicity". Noone actually denies this. Doctors prescribe different medicines to different ethnic groups is certain cases. Japanese people are not good at digesting lactose. They are also much shorter than black people, on average.

The controversial part is not the existence of “race”, it is that it has an impact of cognitive ability. This is what mainstream science insists there is no proof (and little proper evidence) of.

[Dystopian Darkness]

Classic racial theories are debunked. You are right there.

However, there are group traits that you can refer to as "race" or "ethnicity". Noone actually denies this. Doctors prescribe different medicines to different ethnic groups is certain cases. Japanese people are not good at digesting lactose. They are also much shorter than black people, on average.

The controversial part is not the existence of “race”, it is that it has an impact of cognitive ability. This is what mainstream science insists there is no proof (and little proper evidence) of.

I agree with all said. By "cognitive ability", do you mean how others see certain groups and how groups see themselves and interact with society?

[One Degree]

You might be able to stretch an argument that a very few light skinned people are a different race.

Light skin was passed on by Neanderthal genes as well as evolving separately in Homo Sapiens.

[layman]

Light skin was passed on by Neanderthal genes as well as evolving separately in Homo Sapiens.

All “ethnic groups” other than sub saharan Africans have non-homo sapien DNA I think. I am not sure why that would what defines a “race”. There are group traits that are inherited by some individuals. Clusters of these make what we could describe as a "race" or "ethnic group". Its not an exact science. This is where the social construct part comes in. People can self identify on top of this.

Therefore it is both a social construct and a part of our DNA.

I agree with all said. By "cognitive ability", do you mean how others see certain groups and how groups see themselves and interact with society?

Cognitive abilities as in brain-based skills we need to carry out any tasks. Noone really has a problem saying certain groups of people tend to be smaller, more muscular, physical things. The big "taboo" is in brain based skills. This is essentially what racialism is. Noone would call you that for saying black people are "on average" taller than White people, or Asians etc.

[ThirdTerm]

Noone actually denies this. Doctors prescribe different medicines to different ethnic groups is certain cases. Japanese people are not good at digesting lactose.

[youtube]vwFunRD0ark[/youtube]

[youtube]XOazuRto_zs[/youtube]

Most Japanese people can consume 200ml of milk without severe symptoms, while milk intolerance affects only 19% of Japanese adults, and Japanese consumption of dairy products amounted to 5.98 million tons in 2009. Handing out free milk bottles to pupils is a mandatory part of the school meal programme in Japan as is the case with the Nursery Milk scheme in Britain, which allows children in day care to receive 189ml of milk free each day up until their fifth birthday. Lactose intolerance also affects European populations and 10% of Northern Europeans overall and 26% of Swedish adults still develop lactose intolerance. The gene responsible for lactose persistence (-13910*T) was introduced to European hunter-gatherers by Middle Eastern farmers, who first domesticated horses for milk products and developed lactose persistence as a result. 95% of European hunter-gatherers in Scandinavia were lactose intolerant (Malmstrom et al. 2010) and most Europeans descended from brown-eyed Middle Eastern farmers who interbred with European hunter-gatherers and displaced these early blue-eyed settlers of Europe with mtDNA haplogroups U4 and U5.

The incidence of milk intolerance is approximately 19% in Japanese adults when 200 ml of milk is given. However, a much greater incidence was assumed when considered under the criteria of Western standard. 2. The lactase activity was significantly greater in milk drinkers than non-drinkers. And, internationally, the active is higher in those nationalities whose milk consumption is greater. 3. Lactase is an adaptive enzyme and rather easily induced by lactose load feeding in animals. From the data of our own and of the literature, it was further confirmed that environmental factors play a more important role than genetic factors in the etio-pathogenesis of milk intolerance.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1234085


Funnel Beaker Reenactment (Archeon 2007)

Genes and culture are believed to interact, but it has been difficult to find direct evidence for the process. One candidate example that has been put forward is lactase persistence in adulthood, i.e. the ability to continue digesting the milk sugar lactose after childhood, facilitating the consumption of raw milk. This genetic trait is believed to have evolved within a short time period and to be related with the emergence of sedentary agriculture. Here we investigate the frequency of an allele (-13910*T) associated with lactase persistence in a Neolithic Scandinavian population. From the 14 individuals originally examined, 10 yielded reliable results. We find that the T allele frequency was very low (5%) in this Middle Neolithic hunter-gatherer population, and that the frequency is dramatically different from the extant Swedish population (74%). We conclude that this difference in frequency could not have arisen by genetic drift and is either due to selection or, more likely, replacement of hunter-gatherer populations by sedentary agriculturalists. The ability to drink milk as an adult occurs at a high frequency in present-day populations that practice dairying and cattle rearing [1-4]. It has been suggested that this correlation represents a case of gene-culture co-evolution, i.e. an adaptive genetic trait exposed to positive selection induced by cultural practices. The -13910*T allele associated with this trait in Europeans appears to have been the target of strong selection over a relatively short period of time [5,6]. Such selection pressure could be one of several explanations for the high frequency of the derived allele (associated with allowing milk consumption in adulthood) in northern Europeans, the region where the allele is most common (74% in Sweden [7]). A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP-13910 T/C), strongly associated with the ability to digest lactose in adulthood [8], has been used as a marker for the genetic trait. Notably, the allele frequency at the SNP and the extent of haplotype homozygosity around the particular SNP-allele indicate a history of a strong positive selection [5,6,9,10], and it has been suggested that this selective pressure was attributable to the introduction of agriculture and animal domestication [10,11]. The Pitted Ware Culture (PWC) was a major Neolithic hunter-gatherer population in Northern Europe and was partly contemporaneous with the farming TRB population (TRB after the German word Trichterbecherkultur, i.e Funnel Beaker Culture). The PWC are thought to have been present in Scandinavia between 5,400-4,300 years before present (BP) [12], which is later than the suggested initiation of selection for the T allele [6]. In this study, we find that the frequency of the derived allele is low in the PWC (5%) compared to the frequency in the extant Swedish population, and that the change in frequency is incompatible with genetic drift as the sole explanation under a model of population continuity. Thus, a genetic component interacting with culture, such as the ability to digest milk as an adult, could have been the result of the replacement of the hunter-gatherer population by an agricultural population. Alternatively, positive selection could have dramatically increased the frequency of the derived allele in the PWC, allowing for population continuity from the PWC to the extant Swedish population.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/10/89/

[blackjack21]

This is where the social construct part comes in. People can self identify on top of this.

Therefore it is both a social construct and a part of our DNA.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal..." is a political construct that has been stretched well beyond its stated intent. America was founded ultimately by the runts of the aristocracy--people who were educated, but didn't have titles of nobility. Merchants, military men and clerics were essentially revolting against the notion that their first born great uncles and their descendents got to set policy from London and disregard the sentiments of colonists who socially were living as they pleased in many respects. So that break was sort of natural.

However, they never meant in a million years that white men were the equals of all others. Thomas Jefferson may have felt so, but he was having sex with his slaves.

Europeans set about "civilizing" people who weren't "civilized." So when we examine that from the lens of European violence, you ultimately have to look at it as social cohesion, allowing development of a group identity and cooperation within the context of specialization of labor to form more advanced technical economies.

One of the things that came out of IQ testing and attempts at cultural norming was the notion that intelligence is related in many respects to the ability to adapt to societal expectations.

The big "taboo" is in brain based skills. This is essentially what racialism is.

Well this is a big part of what distinguishes some white (European) people from whites (Europeans). It's why something like "political correctness" exists. If something is "politically correct," those who want to be in-group must conform to that group's norms. The huge frustration of people with such notions is that people like me don't want to be in-group, AND we don't conform to their out-group descriptions anyway. For example, I find these topics of racial differences interesting, but I do not run around burning crosses on people's lawns, denying them housing, fair trials and so on; yet, I'm described by people in the "political correct" community as being exactly that type of person, and yet I don't conform to their out-group description either.

The commons of Europe are conformists essentially. The aristocracy is not. The aristocracy is cruel if it serves their interest, and magnanimous if it serves their interest. The commons are always cruel to the outside group. That is why people on the political left cannot tolerate any difference of opinion without resorting to labelling out-group people as radical extremists and so on. Meanwhile, they try to create the appearance of normality for statistically relevant outgroup behavior precisely to expand the social in-group according to their norms. Since their ideals require universalism, I assume they will always hit the ash-heap of history, because competition is written into our biology. Yet, they don't seem to get this--perhaps a feeling of safety in numbers.

Their desire for universality makes their ideas rather peculiar, though. For example, if you describe homosexuality as "deviant," it can make a homosexual male feel like a freak. Yet, if the homosexual male is given to left-wing aesthetics, he must be tolerated by leftists, because he's useful. So a statistical term like "deviant," becomes taboo to leftists even though it is a correct description (i.e., homosexuality is outlier behavior, several deviations from the mean; hence, the term "deviant" from statistics). Whereas, aristocrats are comfortable with the notion that people can be unlike them and still be okay, the commons cannot. So the homosexual male tends to adopt aristocratic mannerisms, while eschewing the common manners. Yet, he finds aristocratic political views repugnant except in the one aspect that the aristocrats are "not like the others," which is how the homosexual feels about himself as he's not like the others too. So the homosexual male tends to favor leftist views, but tends to adopt aristocratic manners.

We also see this in terms of risk tolerance: Protestants and atheists appear to be more risk tolerant, and are generally better off financially then those with low risk tolerance. So when you say something like:

Cognitive abilities as in brain-based skills we need to carry out any tasks.

What happens if you're highly epinephrine sensitive? You might do really well academically with ballistics and arriving at firing solutions; yet, on the battlefield you might shit your pants and freak out, but in the class room you do just fine. Yet, the middle-of-the-class guy who isn't as easily rattled, but not as smart as the top-of-class guy, might be better at coming up with a firing solution while under fire himself.

Most Japanese people can consume 200ml of milk without severe symptoms, while milk intolerance affects only 19% of Japanese adults, and Japanese consumption of dairy products amounted to 5.98 million tons in 2009.

The issue is that "All men are created equal" is not useful outside of politics, and it is questionable in politics. People do metabolize things differently and that was what was being alluded to. For example:

Monotherapy with labetalol compared with propranolol. Differential effects by race.

This study demonstrated that labetalol is equally effective in white and black patients, whereas, propranolol is significantly (p less than 0.05) more effective in white than in black patients. Moreover, labetalol is significantly more effective than propranolol in lowering the standing systolic/diastolic blood pressure of black patients (p less than 0.02/p less than 0.001). These blood-pressure effects were accompanied by a significantly greater (p less than 0.04) reduction in heart rate with propranolol. Furthermore, significantly more (p less than 0.05) black patients treated with propranolol compared to those treated with labetalol required the addition of a diuretic for control of their blood pressure.

The point is that "All men are created equal" doesn't stand up to a null hypothesis.

[Dystopian Darkness]

I really Hate what I call 'Skip posting'.
Where some Clown just blurts out his EMPTY opinion despite pages of contrary and Meaty opinion, including on the very page he's posting on.
There IS some obligation to back your opinion or attempt to refute Substantial contrary one such as my many posts including the top and subsequent posts last page.. the same one you posted on.
`

I'm not going to reply to your insult because it would represent a gross violation of forum rules. Speaking of forum rules, I was giving my opinion on what I think about race and I'm not obliged to read every post, specially if some are extremely lengthy. There is no such thing as race biologically because that would require that different races represent different species when we are all the same species

I think ethnicity as one's ancestry is a valid concept and it has biological and genetic foundations such as haplogroups etc. A better question is how do we define ethnicity - Is anyone 100% white or black? No one can trace his/hers ancestry far enough to conclude he/she is 100% pure, and due to evolutionary processes there is some mixing in all of us despite the fact that we can find a predominant ethnicity and ancestry. Why is someone 50/50 white black considered black/mestizo but not white? And why are whites with small asian ancestry mostly considered white? Is anyone "pure"?

[abu afak]

I'm not going to reply to your insult because it would represent a gross violation of forum rules. Speaking of forum rules, I was giving my opinion on what I think about race and I'm not obliged to read every post, specially if some are extremely lengthy.

LOFL.
You didn't reply beause you couldn't.
Love the tranparent faux-offense defense tho.
I posted the quite simple to understand opinion of perhaps the world's foremost Evolution/Speciation Expert on the last page.
You WHIFFED... Again.
Also love the near 2 MONTH old response you hoped would go unnoticed.

There is no such thing as race biologically because that would require that different races represent different species when we are all the same species.

What!
This is 1000% wrong and certifiably Batty.
Race occurs WITHIN a species. Race is synonymous with SubSpecie.
You apparently don't even know the concept or word.

I think ethnicity as one's ancestry is a valid concept and it has biological and genetic foundations such as haplogroups etc. A better question is how do we define ethnicity - Is anyone 100% white or black? No one can trace his/hers ancestry far enough to conclude he/she is 100% pure, and due to evolutionary processes there is some mixing in all of us despite the fact that we can find a predominant ethnicity and ancestry. Why is someone 50/50 white black considered black/mestizo but not white? And why are whites with small asian ancestry mostly considered white? Is anyone "pure"?

I suggest NatGeo's Genographic Project.
Send in your Blood and 150 bucks and they'll tell you what Percent of Each race (11) you are.
Have a party.
`

[One Degree]

I suggest NatGeo's Genographic Project.
Send in your Blood and 150 bucks and they'll tell you what Percent of Each race (11) you are.
Have a party.

My genetic testing results clearly state they are based upon probabilities and do not necessarily say anything about your actual ancestry.
If the science has advanced beyond this, I am not aware of it.

[mikema63]

It has not, as it looks at haplogroups and just considers whether or not they are more common among one group or another. None are exclusive.

[Ludovic]

Why do leftists think that labelling race as a social construct invalidates its use? Ethics are a social construct afterall.

[mikema63]

Social constructs can be argued on the relative merits of their use, rightists often try to make race an objective fact to preclude actually having to justify their positions.

[Vyth]

Social constructs can be argued on the relative merits of their use, rightists often try to make race an objective fact to preclude actually having to justify their positions.

If race were a social construct, it would nonetheless have an objective existence; social constructs objectively exist. The question of race is not one of objectivity vs. subjectivity, or existence vs nonexistence; it is its specific status within the world of objective phenomena, namely, whether it be a biological taxon or a social construct. The chief difference between biological and social groups, as far as concerns the question at issue, as one of stability; not, be it repeated, of objective existence. Social divisions tend to be subject to rapid change, which, in the modern æra, is ususally of a chaotic nature. Biological divisions, by contrast, are relatively stable over time, revealing superior orderliness and equilibrium. It is for this reason, that those who stand opposed to "division" in the social world, as reflected in a commitment to leftist ideology, tend to favour the idea of race as a "social construct".

This becomes obvious as soon as we consider things in the context of universal history. The general trajectory of modernity is towards increasing chaos. We can therefore expect a proliferation of ideas which act merely as agencies of an expanding chaos. This increase of chaos must inevitably generate a degree of chaotic distortion in the human psyche. This in turn will be reflected both in the human collective, and the individual. It is evident, for instance, in the chaotic mixing of races and languages, the disruption of castes, mass immigration, and so forth. Individuals, likewise, by partially embodying chaos, are its unwitting vehicles (perhaps even on the neurological level, such diseases as Asperger's Syndrome may be considered as "functionally" chaotic). Those with an interest in politics join the Left; being, as it were, the political political representatives of chaos. This accounts for the Left's otherwise inexplicable aversion to immutable ideas or Absolutes, for these are viewed as philosophically representative of order and light, while they are the vehicles of disorder and darkness. It accounts for the superstitious idolatry of "change" or "progress", i.e. advancing chaos. It explains the tendency of the Left to regard self-contradictory absurdities as axiomatic laws, e.g. "everything is relative (except relativity, which is universal)". In this thread, it is exhibited by the failure of those on the Left to discern between such basic categories as subjective vs. objective, accidental vs. essential properties, and so forth. It is even reflected in the crudity of the personal conduct, so often exhibited by Leftists. It is because the Left are possessed by chaos; they are its unwitting vehicles, its personifications.

[mikema63]

If race were a social construct, it would nonetheless have an objective existence

Of course they exist as constructs, it doesn't mean they are objectively true however.

[Vyth]

Of course they exist as constructs, it doesn't mean they are objectively true however.

Race objectively "exists", but is not objectively "true", according to you. That is a nonsensical statement. There must be an incoherence in your understanding of objectivity or existence. Starting from a confused understanding of such basic concepts, you are certain to derive incorrect beliefs on all issues. For all you know, your entire perspective of the world could be utterly skewed as a result of this. You will probably need to fashion a new belief system at some point.

[mikema63]

You are reifying the social construct of race.

The construct exists, it does not however make it objectively true.

Even if you are religious you have to view all other religions as not objectively true, they are however objectively social constructs.

[kobe]

Race is a social construct because what distinguishes homo sapiens from other animals is present in every so called race. Furthermore, the separation of various peoples into various so-called races has always been based on cultural conceptions of groupings and who is the other. There was a time when the various peoples of Europe were all considered their own race.

Clinal variation is the accepted subdivision of humans and it wholly explains various phenotypical variations and small genetic mutations that have occurred. But I must stress, the greatest genetic variation among humans is in AFRICA, everyone else's genetic variation is limited to the genetic variation of the groups that came out of Africa. You will find no anthropologist or geneticist that is well-respected that teaches the idea of parallel human evolution anymore. Finally even if we accept that we can loosely group certain continents/subcontinents among what we consider culturally as specific races, you still run into the problem that you can always fuck someone of a different race and you now have "created" a new "race"?! It's absurd taxonomically. Taxonomically significant groups require sexual isolation, something which we have done away with. (!) The further ludicrousness of this proposition is that it is better explained by the clinal variation hypothesis, which means the concept is not only useless but even if it were not, it is redundant.

The only place where it is still somewhat valid is in the medical field where they often use heuristics in order to process information more efficiently to come up with solutions at a faster rate. But there are very likely creationist doctors and a good number of them out there in the world- they are not experts on human evolution at all.

[mikema63]

Many studies have also been really poorly done, methodologically speaking. Medical studies regarding race usually use the experimenters definition of who is what race without any objective measure and the conclusions are more cultural than biological.

[Vyth]

You are reifying the social construct of race.

The construct exists, it does not however make it objectively true.

Even if you are religious you have to view all other religions as not objectively true, they are however objectively social constructs.

Strictly defined as the attribution of a concrete existence to that which exists only in the abstract, the concept of reification, in spite of its Marxist pedigree, may not be without philosophical utility. Too often, however, its meaning is extended to preclude any perception of concrete reality in universals, or even the possibility of treating an "abstract" concept as a point of reference to a concrete reality. This error, inherited from the Nominalists, is usually found to be at the heart of the various pseudo-philosophical "refutations" of immutable realities.

The argument of reification, as applied to race in particular, implies a threefold error:

i. it entails the assumption that everything not physically or phychologically tangible is "abtract", and everything physically or psychologically tangible is "concrete";

ii. that only the "concrete" (so defined) is equatable with "real";

iii. that the idea of race cannot be concretely apprehended in objective reality, but can arise solely by means of abstraction.

Thus, according to the above assumptions, the belief that race has a physical existence ascribes "concreteness" to the supposedly "abstract" concept of race. And since physical tangibility is narrowly equated with both "concreteness" and objective reality, the ascription of any reality to race, even at the metaphysical level, also entails reification; since, again, "real" is falsely equated with the physical.

Now each of these assumptions is incorrect. First, it is not true that only the physically and psychologically tangible is concrete; universals, e.g., can be concretely apprehended. Second, general qualities are just as rooted in reality, and just as "concrete", as physical objects. Even if no one existed to perceive sensory qualities, as for instance "purple", this would not take away their concrete, objective existence, as it is situated beyond the spatiotemporal plane. And third: it is possible to discern the real through an "abstract" idea, just as we can perceive the real through a physical object; concrete reality lies neither in the physical object, nor in the idea, but in that to which both bear reference. The appearance of a tree, for instance, is merely a point of reference to the reality that underlies the tree; the tree itself is illusory. Likewise, when a general quality is clearly apprehended, one sees beyond the mere concept of the quality, and perceives a concrete and objective reality, to which the concept coincides—namely, the quality itself. It is not "abstractly", but concretely apprehended. This underlying reality, to which both the tree and the idea bear reference, is not itself mental or physical; it is the essence in which both are rooted. It may give rise to both abstract ideas and physical objects, yet it is beyond both. Races merely reflect different aspects of the immutable human essence; the 'concreteness' of race refers not to its physical or mental tangibility, but to concretely apprehended eternal forms, to which the various races are merely imperfect corporeal approximations.

[kobe]

We are all homo sapiens. The essential quality that make us that animal are found in all people, regardless of cultural perceptions of race. Therefore we are all homo sapiens. It is as simple as that. The race hypothesis is not supported by science in the least, regardless of that word salad that you presented.