European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 268

On September 09 2015 01:47 LegalLord wrote:

1. Islamophobia is not the same as racism. Many people are more than willing to take non-Muslim refugees and are willing to support them.
2. With where genetics is today, the only way you can conclusively make the statement that "race isn't real" is if you are essentially accepting conjecture as fact. Not a scientific conclusion, at any rate.

On September 09 2015 01:52 Plansix wrote:

That science was resolved in the 1950's. Race isn't real. It is a social construct. But like global warming, people don't like science because it tells them what they don't want to hear.

On September 09 2015 02:02 Faust852 wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid
It can be politically incorrect in your opinion. Thing it, it's still in use because they exist. They aren't inherently inferior or superior, but there are difference between people. Some race could suffer different disease, are stronger in some way. But the term exist. Being racist is thinking that an asian is inferior to a white person.
But you can't be racist of a religion.
Europe has know so many discrimination from people of the same race, because it is not a racist issue, but an ideological conflict.

On September 09 2015 02:13 Plansix wrote:

People could call it a conflict between religions and it still would partly be based on prejudice, incomplete information, propaganda, irrational fear and ignorance. And I am sure the difference in skin tone doesn't help that much either.

On September 09 2015 02:15 dismiss wrote:

Wait, don't you like science now because it told you you're wrong?

On September 09 2015 02:22 Plansix wrote:

http://www.newsweek.com/there-no-such-thing-race-283123

http://www.jstor.org/stable/682047?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

The science pretty much agrees that the modern concept or race is a myth or social construct. You can find endless papers dating back to the 1950s on the topic that there are few genetic differences between humans. The terms have uses for anthropologists, but even there the terms are disputed. So no, the science isn't on the side of people say the modern concept or race is real. Its only real if your studying anthropology,which isn't what is happening here.

On September 09 2015 02:02 Faust852 wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid
It can be politically incorrect in your opinion. Thing it, it's still in use because they exist. They aren't inherently inferior or superior, but there are difference between people. Some race could suffer different disease, are stronger in some way. But the term exist. Being racist is thinking that an asian is inferior to a white person.
But you can't be racist of a religion.
Europe has know so many discrimination from people of the same race, because it is not a racist issue, but an ideological conflict.

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 September 09 2015 01:52 Plansix wrote:

That science was resolved in the 1950's. Race isn't real. It is a social construct. But like global warming, people don't like science because it tells them what they don't want to hear.

On September 09 2015 02:39 cLutZ wrote:

Yup, race isn't real. That must be why you are so laser focused on it, and use it to justify all your opinions. Plus it has the bonus of letting you dismiss, off hand, people who disagree.

All the while, you haven't refuted claims that these aren't primarily refugees; that they pose a significant burden on the state (more importantly the taxpayers); or that they pose an integration risk.

On September 09 2015 03:05 dismiss wrote:
I haven't read the entire website, just what kwizach highlighted for now, but they just seem to like calling things that aren't in line with their findings arbitrary and subjective, also it's sort of disregarding that there might be other reasons for higher genetic diversity than just people running around the continent some.

I've read a bit more, essentially Relethford says "I can find that these certain groups have different clines for different characteristics, but if you mash them all together they're one big group with a huge cline and you're supposed to do that because I say so."

On September 09 2015 03:18 kwizach wrote:

Thanks for debunking their entire body of research with your expert analysis. It really sounds like you have a great grasp of what they're saying.

On September 09 2015 03:13 Faust852 wrote:
But in this thread and the current subject, we don't give a fuck because race isn't the issue, like at all. Arab aren't more brown than italian or spanish people. Yet they aren't discriminated against. There are muslim that are as white as the queen's ass so please stop using the racist card or whatever.