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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 6:04:37 GMT 1
I have just noticed this: ...I have stated , on this subject, that I have no idea whether there are intelligence differencs between races... If this were indeed true, PA would have hastened to distance himself from Nick's post, where he suggests we are dealing here with something quite settled: On the contrary, Nick suggested nothing of the sort. You are merely having your apparent usual difficulty in following English. Nick (clearly and unambiguously) suggested that the concept of race was disputed by members of this board. The hypothesis that there are intelligence differences between races is far from being "quite settled". What is settled is that there are clear differences in IQ test scores, which are extremely difficult to eradicate: the dispute, such as it is (as Nay suggests, the subject is taboo, and has been since the 70s) is what causes these differences. I'd stick with Latin if I were you. It is not possible to "thoroughly prove" an empirical hypothesis. And as scientific orthodoxy now considers to be more accurate, motion is relative. Scientifically, it only has a meaning comparing frames of reference - the Church orthodoxy was just as correct (and just as false) as the Copernican hypothesis.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 6:08:36 GMT 1
Progenitor A said "Do you maintain there is no genetic difference between a Chinaman and a Zulu - it is entirely accidental that they happen to have the differences that they do" There are genetic differences between Chinamen and Zulus. There are also genetic differences between Zulus and Hutus, and between Irishmen and Slavs, between different families in this country, between males and females, and between individuals. What's your point? Mypoint is that Jean maintains that 'race' is fuzzy and non-scientific. If it can be discriminated through genetics hen it is entirely scientific Just so. It is no more "fuzzy and non-scientific" than the concept of family - which apparently is perfectly acceptable!
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 6:24:30 GMT 1
Mypoint is that Jean maintains that 'race' is fuzzy and non-scientific. If it can be discriminated through genetics hen it is entirely scientific Race can be discriminated through genetics? Where do you get that idea? What are the races that genetics can discriminate? I've spelled this out to you before. Race refers to families of families. Ultimately, this discrimination goes back to the early history of human migration, and its likely dispersion from probably one (Africa), but quite feasibly two or three other centres. Geographical separation, interbreeding with other species of hominids, and what is undoubtedly a natural disposition of human tribes to enforce clan distinctness and maintain territorial ownership led to large groupings of those original families with distinct genetic identities and comparatively impermeable geographical boundaries. Now, if you are going to say that these distinct families of families should not be called "races" because there has been some intermixing, or because the boundaries blend into each other to some extent, then this is not a "scientific" objection, nor is it a valid linguistic one - it applies equally to the concept of "family", "tribe", or "clan". Do away with those because of some sort of politically correct distaste and you do away with anthropology and ethnography. Not to mention the genetic research into those migratory movements in the first place - how do you think the Out-of-Africa hypothesis was formulated in the first place?
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 6:33:17 GMT 1
"If by this you mean there are genetic differences between races, but we do not know what they are so we cannot discriminate, then to say that there are genetic differences is meaningless" It is NOT meaningless to say that there are genetic differences between humans, it is just a FACT. Come on, pro A, get your thinking cap on! What I am saying is that I do not know what you mean by the term "race". You insist that the human population must be divided up into broad categories called "races". I say that there is no SCIENTIFIC justification for doing that. Well, you're wrong. There are hundreds of genes and gene clusters that identify those families of families, and their locality of origin. It's how population ancestry is analysed. It's not an "invention" - it's an easily discernible fact, as I pointed out to you the last time we had this discussion. These families of families are genetically distinct enough to be readily recognisable, in general - as you agreed you would have no difficulty in doing. They're "inventions" that are geographically distinct, in space and time: a scientific reality. Not particularly.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 6:55:32 GMT 1
"Then you said that there are genetic differences between races. That difference is surely a SCIENTIFIC definition of race" I NEVER SAID that there are genetic differences between races. Here: "There are genetic differences between Chinamen and Zulus." You don't need to number them. You don't need to specify exactly where the boundaries lie. You don't need to specify exactly how far back in time to go before you say: this is a familial grouping. All you need to do is say these genes are found in this grouping, geographically specifiable to this or that area, and therefore indicate common ancestry, distinct from other groups and other areas that do not possess those genes. Exactly the same facts equally apply to the concept of "family" - they are, indeed, cognate concepts. Are you going to claim that "family" is not a scientific concept? You do a DNA analysis, exactly. But because many of these genes are quite evident in the phenotype, and the human brain is very adept at recognising such differences, mostly it's just a matter of looking. A Zulu has very dark skin, for example, a result of a genetic adaptation to long savannah exposure to an equitorial sun by a higher production of melanin than those families who have adapted to a colder Northern clime (and curly hair, broader nose, &c.) A typical Chinaman has an epicanthic fold in their eyes - a result of genetic adaptation to millenia of a staple diet of rice. You don't need to physically isolate the specific gene groupings responsible for these adaptations, though it's easy enough to do so these days - you can see them just by looking, as you've previously admitted you have no trouble doing. The same way "family" is defined. This is not how these things are done. People don't have the time for that sort of laziness. If you want to quote qhat you take to be authoritative information, specify what you're referring to. I'd suggest wiki articles are not authoritative in themselves, incidentally - many of them are just flat-out wrong, especially - oddly enough you might think - the ones dealing with science.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 7:01:59 GMT 1
He can easily tell the difference between a 'Chinaman' and a Zulu, just by looking at them. He rarely gets much further than that. So can you. So can everyone. It is not "getting further" in the least to claim this universal ability to successfully draw distinctions - correctly identifying by visual cues alone the geographical origins and therefore familial ancestry of someone - is a mere "social invention". That's just false, and doesn't get anyone anywhere.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 7:06:44 GMT 1
No I did not I try to avoid Wiki as a reference source (as should anyone with any sense) Wiki is as good or as bad as whoever writes the individual articles. Quite. Or groups of individuals, even. Unfortunately, that simply isn't true. Obviously, if you give it a little thought. Whoever writes and edits the articles cite references that agree with their contentions.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 7:25:49 GMT 1
No I didn't! I never mentioned the word "race" at all! All I am pointing out is that there are genetic differences between all individuals (identical twins are the exception). There are also genetic differences between males and females. That does not mean that we decide that males and females are in separate races (nor in separate countries!). You're merely doing your usual trick of getting carried away with an obviously false analogy that somehow strikes in your head and unfortunately sticks there. There's no analogy between gender and race. We identify "race" because there are very large number of individuals with these genetic similarities (that are not shared by other "races".) You have admitted yourself that you would have no difficulty distinguishing racially identifying features from a line-up of a dozen or so typical members of categorised races. No need for a list therefore, is there - we already share a common visual checklist without having to verbalise it. It is not "unscientific" for that - any more than the equally common ability to recognise features shared by siblings without having to put such cues into words is. It depends entirely on where you choose to draw your boundaries in space and time. Just as with "family". Genetically, there are seven original "families" in the indigenous population of Ireland - seven distinct genetic groupings. But obviously there are hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of "families" if you draw your boundaries more recently. It is your question that is unscientific, not the further demand that you phrase it more precisely. The same could be same with the identical question: how many animals or plants are there? How many genera? Go back far enough and there's one, or perhaps a handful, if protozoa evolved in differeny places independently. You're not a geneticist, I presume. Obviously, that's even worse - a lot worse. As you see. It didn't refute the existence of biogenetically distinct families, self-evidently, so it could hardly do any different for the concept of race, which is all the term means. Some scholars do. Some scholars argue all sorts and every sort of crazy theory. You're correct though - this is a particular strand of Marxist thought. If you're looking for reliability, I'll take practising scientists over "some scholars" any day - and so should you.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 7:41:32 GMT 1
I'm bored with this conversation now. It's wandered very far from Nay's OP - which was genuinely interesting, and of serious import. This is just a silly dispute with people who don't understand how language (or science) works. It reminds me of an argument here not so long ago with someone who seriously claimed homosexuality was just a "lifestyle choice". Sometimes the depth of ignorance and prejudice is just too unjustifiably large and you have to say: oh ffs, go and do some reading, will you, this isn't a kindergarten.
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Post by fascinating on Dec 4, 2014 9:00:16 GMT 1
mrsonde, as before, you still fail to provide any evidence of "race" in humans, as a scientific concept (and PA doesn't even TRY to provide any such evidence!).
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 9:10:33 GMT 1
I provided you with all the evidence required. I asked you to conduct a hypothetical line-up composed of members of different races, and you did not deny that you would not successfully categorise those members. Further you failed to provide any evidence whatever to back up your dogma that these categories are merely cultural inventions: on the contrary, you could not deny that if DNA tests were then conducted on those members of tyhe line-up you correctly identified, they would indeed conclusively prove that you were indeed correct (I am presuming you are at least moderately typically competent at this skill).
I have absolutely no idea what more you take "scientific" to mean - and I doubt very much, from previous evidence, that you do either.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 9:17:09 GMT 1
As for Nay's disinclination to respond to your bizarre demand, I suspect he's as reluctant as me to get too deeply involved in trying to correct such a daunting depth of ignorance. As he said, your position is on the face of it quite bonkers. What it is you suppose DNA ancestry analysis is determining exactly I really can;t imagine - and this is a very large field in science now, and has been for decades. Presumably you believe all these thousands of scientists, with their multi-million dollar laboratories, are not biologists and geneticists and ethnographers but are unbeknownst to themselves really engaged in some obscure field of comparative linguistics, arguing amongst themselves what cultural invention to conjure up next. Sorry - that was Derrida and Marcuse and all those other nutty Frenchified Marxist theorists who came up with your barmy theory in the first place.
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Post by fascinating on Dec 4, 2014 9:33:55 GMT 1
This whole thread about race arose from your typically snide remark in your reply to your opening post. You implied that some of us don't like science and want to deny the existence of race. All along I have simply been seeking to establish exactly what people mean by using the term "race". I asked for a precise scientific definition, and nobody, certainly not you mrsonde, has provided one. However I provided 2 links which strongly imply that race is not a scientific concept. You try to rubbish Encyclopedia Britannica. Well between that and your own snide contributions, I think I can decide which is rubbish.
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Post by Progenitor A on Dec 4, 2014 9:49:36 GMT 1
This whole thread about race arose from your typically snide remark in your reply to your opening post. You implied that some of us don't like science and want to deny the existence of race. All along I have simply been seeking to establish exactly what people mean by using the term "race". I asked for a precise scientific definition, and nobody, certainly not you mrsonde, has provided one. However I provided 2 links which strongly imply that race is not a scientific concept. You try to rubbish Encyclopedia Britannica. Well between that and your own snide contributions, I think I can decide which is rubbish. Your argument is bizarre You agree that it is possible to distinguish between some different groups of humans simply from appearance You agree that genetic analysis will correspondingly identify those groups of people So you accept that it is scientifically possible to distinguish betweenn groups of people Yet when the term 'race' is applied to those groups, you disregard your arguments preferring the mushy 'social construct' Here is a synopsis of a discussion of the subject from 'Nature' New genetic data has enabled scientists to re-examine the relationship between human genetic variation and 'race'. We review the results of genetic analyses that show that human genetic variation is geographically structured, in accord with historical patterns of gene flow and genetic drift. Analysis of many loci now yields reasonably accurate estimates of genetic similarity among individuals, rather than populations. Clustering of individuals is correlated with geographic origin or ancestry. These clusters are also correlated with some traditional concepts of race, but the correlations are imperfect because genetic variation tends to be distributed in a continuous, overlapping fashion among populations. Therefore, ancestry, or even race, may in some cases prove useful in the biomedical setting, but direct assessment of disease-related genetic variation will ultimately yield more accurate and beneficial information.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 4, 2014 10:14:04 GMT 1
This whole thread about race arose from your typically snide remark in your reply to your opening post. You implied that some of us don't like science and want to deny the existence of race. Nothing snide about it whatsoever. It was typically direct, and factually correct. And I told you exactly what they mean by it, several times. I most certainly have. It is not my fault that you do not understand what "scientific" means, or how language works. So what? That doesn't make them true! I've explained to you - this theory is a Marxist proposition from the 60s and 70s, which unfortunately found a welcome ground in the Anglo-American campuses of the time - as did similar neo-Kantian nonsense such as "species" don't really exist, or "intelligence" for that matter - any concept, including any used in science. EB articles are written by one selected expert. They are not peer-reviewed. They are very rarely even edited. That's just one of the reasons it's no longer published. That's up to you, in free exercise of you own judgement, however weird and irrational it is, and however much it is contradicted by the actual practices of whole fields of ongoing science. But what you cannot claim to do is to have presented an argument that is not rubbish yourself, becuase you have totally failed to respond to the answers that have been given to your questions or even tried to refute the overwhelming evidence for their truth. You just keep repeating your dogma - which is exactly what the OP was referring to.
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