European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 18

On December 07 2014 04:28 Paljas wrote:

It dont think its offensive, just bullshit. Put source on your claims to convince me.
All this race stuff is considered nonsense in modern science, and has been replaced with other terms, which have vastly different meanings

On December 07 2014 04:26 kwizach wrote:

Let's make one thing clear. Human races are social constructs. Genetic research has shown that there is no scientific basis whatsoever for determining where to objectively place limits that would distinguish different human "races". Sorry, but your pseudoscientific claims about groups completely ignores the reality of our genetic makeup, which is almost entirely the same and for which the little differences that remain can be just as big, or even bigger, between the members of the same group among those you mention than between members of different groups. To quote Dr. Venter and the scientists who worked on the sequencing of the human genome (source):




From what I understand, Nyxisto was pretty clearly talking about racism against "the other", the non-white, for which he used the term "black people" to refer to how racists think about those "others".

Color of the skin is not a social construct per se (although you can argue that how color is perceived is), but races, as the arbitrary delimitations of groups based on skin color, still are. The fact that you consider North Africans to be "white" doesn't mean that others can't see them as "black" or "brown" or "mixed" or whatever because there's nothing objective about where to place those limits (or about placing them at all).

On December 07 2014 09:58 Ufnal wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#Physical_anthropology as an example of the concept of race being not only used, but also justified by specific physical charcteristics, in science. In case you don't believe Wikipedia, feel free to check the references.

On December 07 2014 02:58 L1ghtning wrote:
No. Human races are not a social construct. Splitting us into races doesn't mean that we're not related, it just means that our relation is so distant that you couldn't mistake one group with another. A german shepherd is the same species as a dalmatian, but different races.

On December 07 2014 09:58 Ufnal wrote:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#Physical_anthropology as an example of the concept of race being not only used, but also justified by specific physical charcteristics, in science. In case you don't believe Wikipedia, feel free to check the references.

On December 07 2014 10:20 L1ghtning wrote:

You clearly don't understand the concept of race. Anthropology studies, especially studies of Y-chromosomes have clearly shown that europeans and middle easterns, and white indians and north africans have the same heritage, with gradual differences. Gradual differences meaning that swedes may look a bit different on average than poles, but that in the end they consist of the same 10 or so undistinguable subgroups, just at different ratios.
And even if swedes may in fact be almost 100% distinguishable from let's say, egyptians, swedes themselves are not a distinct race, and neither are egyptians. This is why the concept of the german race falls flat, while the concept of the indoeuropean or the white race is valid. In order for a race to be valid, you need to be able to distinguish them from everybody who isn't part of the race. And indeed the indoeuropeans are 100% distinguishable from east asians, native americans and sub-saharan africans, both in terms of certain genetical markers and physical features.

Of course, the races did appear simply because we procreated seperately from eachother, but that doesn't make them less valid.

In a discussion of Race and global patterns of phenotypic variation, John Relethford plots human skin color variation: "The result is a continuous straight line ranging from the darkest extremes to the lightest extremes in skin color. There are no identifiable clusters. . . . Researchers are of course free to subdivide this continuum into different groups, but such clustering would be arbitrary and subjective in terms of the number of groups and the cutoff points used to distinguish them. The lack of apparent clusters is a reflection of the fact that skin color shows a classic pattern of clinal variation." (2009:17) [...]

Unlike some textbooks and pronouncements which use this information to declare all physical variation is clinal, Relethford proceeds to consider craniometric or skull variation. [...] Relethford considers racial labels as “a culturally constructed label that crudely and imprecisely describes real variation” (2009:20). Variation is real, exists, and has been structured by geography and migration, but the labels we use are a “crude first-order approximation” (2009:21). Relethford uses the example of how we see height as short, medium, and tall: “We tend to use crude labels in everyday life with the realization that they are fuzzy and subjective. I doubt anyone thinks that terms such as ‘short,’ ‘medium,’ and ‘tall’ refer to discrete groups, or that humanity only comes in three values of height!” (2009:21). [...] Current scientific consensus is that craniometrics yields clustered geographic groupings, but those groupings are subjective and arbitrary. [...]

Skin color, like many other racial measures, is continuously variable. Crania may be structured geographically, but classifications based on geographic clusters would be arbitrary. But what about measuring all the bones? Television shows feature forensic anthropologists easily identifying race from skeletal remains. Does that mean race is real?[...] Sauer explains “the successful assignment of race to a skeletal specimen is not a vindication of the race concept, but rather a prediction that an individual, while alive was assigned to a particular socially constructed ‘racial’ category” (1992:107). Forensic anthropologists have samples of bones from many geographic areas, and can classify bones according to what race society has assigned to people with ancestry in those geographic areas. However, examining the bones provides a probability estimate of likely race assignment: “In ascribing a race name to a set of skeletonized remains, the anthropologist is actually translating information about biological traits to a culturally constructed labeling system that was likely to have been applied to a missing person” (1992:109).

Despite the provocative and sometimes misunderstood title, Sauer pleads for forensic anthropologists to better explain what it means to make racial classifications from skeletal remains. He begs forensic anthropologists not to “sail on” without making an effort to expose people “to the notion that perceived races are not reflections of biological reality” (1992:110). We should “not fall into the trap of accepting races as valid biologically discrete categories because we use them so often” (1992:110). [...] What actually happens is forensic anthropologists match bones probabilistically against known existing assortments. Those assortments can be anything socially relevant. Changing the context of bone discovery could lead to different predictive classification–of the same bones: “The use of different priors also shows the importance of prior information, as ‘Mr. Johnson’ would have been classified as a Pacific Islander had his remains been found on Hawaii and as an ‘American Black’ had his remains been found in Gary, Indiana” (Konigsberg et al. 2009:83). [...]

Even after proving the continuous variation of skin tones, and even after showing how bones and skulls do not confirm traditional race classifications, there is still the sense that genetics offers real proof of race. Genetic testing companies amplify this misconception in a rush to market ancestry, while pharmaceutical companies sell race-targeted medications.

[...] Genetic classifications of races outside of Sub-Saharan Africa are simply subsets of Sub-Saharan African diversity. Moreover, and perhaps most strangely, “a classification that takes into account evolutionary relationships and the nested pattern of diversity would require that Sub-Saharan Africans are not a race because the most exclusive group that includes all Sub-Saharan African populations also includes every non-Sub-Saharan African population” (Long et al. 2009:32).

[...] This evolutionary history is explained in the article The global pattern of gene identity variation reveals a history of long-range migrations, bottlenecks, and local mate exchange: Implications for biological race. Once again, sophisticated techniques reveal a “nested pattern of genetic structure that is inconsistent with the existence of independently evolving biological races” (Hunley et al. 2009:35). The authors confirm greater genetic variation within Sub-Saharan Africa, and all other humans are a sub-set of this variation. Taxonomic classifications of race cannot account for observed genetic diversity. [...]"

On December 07 2014 10:20 L1ghtning wrote:

You clearly don't understand the concept of race. Anthropology studies, especially studies of Y-chromosomes have clearly shown that europeans and middle easterns, and white indians and north africans have the same heritage, with gradual differences. Gradual differences meaning that swedes may look a bit different on average than poles, but that in the end they consist of the same 10 or so undistinguable subgroups, just at different ratios.
And even if swedes may in fact be almost 100% distinguishable from let's say, egyptians, swedes themselves are not a distinct race, and neither are egyptians. This is why the concept of the german race falls flat, while the concept of the indoeuropean or the white race is valid. In order for a race to be valid, you need to be able to distinguish them from everybody who isn't part of the race. And indeed the indoeuropeans are 100% distinguishable from east asians, native americans and sub-saharan africans, both in terms of certain genetical markers and physical features.

Of course, the races did appear simply because we procreated seperately from eachother, but that doesn't make them less valid.

On December 07 2014 10:35 oneofthem wrote:
citing wikipedia isn't going to fly on this topic.

On December 07 2014 11:41 kwizach wrote:

I understand the concept of race very well, thank you, which is why I'm explaining to you that it is a social construct which is based on the delimitation of groups when those limits have no objective scientific basis. None of what you said even remotely answers what I presented you with. Who is disputing that heritages can be studied, or that traits vary? The point is that on the genetic level the "human races" you referenced make little sense, and that the very traits and characteristics that are used to define "races" in reality exist in spectrums across humanity (or at the very least exist without obvious "breaks"), making any such delimitation arbitrary and socially constructed.

You mention anthropology. Have you read the "Race Reconciled: How Biological Anthropologists View Human Variation" special issue of vol. 39, issue 1 of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (May 2009)? The authors clearly and unambiguously demonstrate that "race is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation" (Heather J.H. Edgar and Keith L. Hunley in the introduction of the special issue, p. 2). You can read a detailed summary of the findings here (this is the page where I initially learned about these papers - I "only" read three of the articles themselves). Here are a few quotes from that summary:


In short, and as I said, variation among humans obviously exists (nobody is claiming otherwise), but races are social constructs.

On December 07 2014 22:51 L1ghtning wrote:

All the ppl who claim that races doesn't exist are just making skewed semantic arguments, by saying things like, although there are certain differences in certain characteristics that are undeniable, there are also a lot of characteristics that are not defined by race. This is true, but claiming that this disproves the race theory shows that the person doesn't understand the concept of race. Races are not completely different from eachother, they are only marginally different in some ways, for instance in facial structure and skin tone. But there are a lot of characteristics that are not defined by race. Height is one of them. Although asians are shorter on average, this is not a rule, and all races have a great diversity in terms of height. What defines a human race is that they have certain features that doesn't exist among other humans, and because the 4 groups that I have mentioned, lived sheltered from eachother for probably over 10 000 years, they gradually developed into races as history passed. I'm well aware that we're all related if you're just going back a lot further in time. This is why we have these different races, rather than different species. We're all the same species, but different subgroups or races, similarly to dog breeds.

I agree that there's no viable reason for why these races should exist, but supporting their existence is merely a question of observation, rather than about justifying their existence.

On December 07 2014 22:50 Skilledblob wrote:
phenotypical differences dont make something another race.

a labrador is still a labrador no matter if it has white or black fur.

On December 07 2014 22:52 farvacola wrote:
Basically, when it comes to race, there is no point in line-drawing.

On December 07 2014 23:48 kwizach wrote:

At this point you are repeating what you already said before instead of addressing my arguments and the thorough debunking of the concept of race that I presented you with through my reference to the scientific findings on the non-existence of objective races with regards to skin color, craniometric variation, skeletons, and genetics. You've also resorted to arguing against strawmen, since the argument is not that races don't exist because we share common characteristics. If you want to bury your head in the sand and ignore the scientific research which debunks your position on the existence of human races that's up to you, but for the people actually interested in learning more on the topic I refer you to my previous post, the "Race Reconciled: How Biological Anthropologists View Human Variation" special issue of vol. 39, issue 1 of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (May 2009) and, for a simple summary of the findings, the page I quoted extensively. As I said, human variation obviously exists, but races are still arbitrary, subjective and very flawed pseudo-delimitations of variations, and thus socially constructed.

On December 08 2014 01:02 L1ghtning wrote:

You haven't debunked anything concerning race. You just don't subscribe to it, because it doesn't fit your narrative about white europeans being "racist" against the rest of the world, including north africans and middle eastern ppl.

The reason why some white europeans look at brown-skinned, black haired indoeuropeans with distrust is because brown skin and black hair is a proxy for indoeuropeans who was raised outside of Europe. It's the culture that are present in those regions that ppl don't like or are afraid of, not the skin color, or the way they look. This is why greeks and southern italians doesn't get lumped up with the ppl who come from muslim countries, despite the fact that they look a lot more like them generally than they look like the typical person in a germanic country. They don't get lumped up with other mediterranean ppl, because the mediterranean ppl north of the sea is closer culturally to "us" than they are to the middle east. The reason why Christian Europe tends to look down upon Muslim Middle East and North Africa, has cultural reasons. It's about phobia of cultures that we consider lesser than ours. This is also why ppl in protestant countries like my country, tend to have the greatest level of trust for ppl who live in protestant countries, followed by the catholic countries and lastly the orthodox countries. This is because religious heritage is a proxy for cultural heritage.

Race is a observation and that's all it is. You're only afraid of the word, because you have this idea about different races not liking eachother because of racial hatred. This is all bullshit. Do you honestly believe that if the ppl in west Africa were in fact white, that they wouldn't have been enslaved? They were enslaved because of cultural reasons. Because they were so technologically backwards and didn't have any powerful allies, the westerners could get away with enslaving them. This is why they were enslaved. This is why the irish was enslaved too. The irish were sheltered on an island in the middle of nowhere. The english could do pretty much whatever they wanted with them, because they had no prominent allies. The fact that they had a shared celtic genetical heritage didn't seem to matter.

On December 07 2014 02:54 Nyxisto wrote:

This is completely irrelevant. People with darker skin colour face a lot of racism in the Western World, I don't really know why they would be considered Caucasian, as they're clearly easily distinguishable. Most native Western Europeans can't even tell the difference between Arabs and Persians, do you think someone will refrain to make racist comments because North-Africans are 'technically white'?

On December 07 2014 04:26 kwizach wrote:

From what I understand, Nyxisto was pretty clearly talking about racism against "the other", the non-white, for which he used the term "black people" to refer to how racists think about those "others".

Color of the skin is not a social construct per se (although you can argue that how color is perceived is), but races, as the arbitrary delimitations of groups based on skin color, still are. The fact that you consider North Africans to be "white" doesn't mean that others can't see them as "black" or "brown" or "mixed" or whatever because there's nothing objective about where to place those limits (or about placing them at all).