I can't believe I'm starting a race thread...

[Rduke55]

[ QUOTE ]
It's not a hedge, just language that can be accepted by an scientist who's an expert in this field. I'm asking for an honest expert opinion. He's free to modify the language to something he finds acceptable. BTW..."probably" means "more likely than not".

RDuke has previously stated quite strongly that the race and IQ correlation is most probably due to non genetic factors, and ridiculed my knowledge and analysis. I want to see what his stance is on ethnicity/IQ without the "there's no such thing race" banner to hide behind.

[/ QUOTE ]

You said black people are less intelligent because of genetics. I said because of the high genetic diversity between black people (among other things) that differences in intelligence (I also quibbled with your intelligence measurement methods) were much more likely due to nongenetic factors (and research backs it up).
Are you misremembering?

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
I cringe any time I see the words "social construct."

Race exists. It is beyond ignorant to deny this. Take some human children from any country or culture in the world. It doesn't matter what society they are from, or whether they've even had any exposure to people of a different race. Show them, individually, a few slides of black people and tell them that these people are "black." Show them some slides of chinese people and tell them that these people are "asian." Show them some American wasps and tell them that these people are "white." Now show them various images of people and ask them to identify whether they are black, white or asian. Common sense should tell you that, even in the absence of an explanation of what race is, each answer will have an extremely significant percentage (I'd guess 90% or more) indicating what race the person is. Nesrly all the children will identify Jerry Seinfeld as white, Chris Rock as black, and Jet Li as asian, regardless of the context of the picture.

I know this test has been done before, and I'm not even going to bother looking for it because it is so painfully obvious. If children of different societies repeatedly show the ability to identify something with great agreement, then there must be something there.

Just because race isn't identified by a scientifically functional, discontinuous property (like species) does not mean that it does not exist. It's a readily identifiable phenotype that any five year old can understand. If civilization hadn't exploded when it did, the races would have speciated too. Are we to believe that inter-group phenotype differences do not exist until the arbitrary point when they can no longer produce fertile offspring?

Mainstream academia does a great disservice to society by making such idiotic claims like "race does not exist." Yes, racism is a problem. It has existed in every multi-cultural society in the history of the world. Is trying to pretend that race doesn't exist really the solution? I don't think so.

[/ QUOTE ]

Children can also tell the difference between blue eyes and brown eyes or thin and fat. Are these also races?

[Speedlimits]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is 'pit bull' a social construct? I know exactly what it means when I see the name. I don't give a rip if the genetic difference between a pit and a poodle is tiny, the information in the pit bull designation is quite valuable. I know that this small segment of the species correlates with certain behaviors. Ignore this at your peril.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point. It is a valuable construct for avoiding sneaky Chinamen, greedy Jews, violent blacks, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well done. Backhandedly lable me racist and ignore my post's content. Very progressive. You're in good company.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry, I interpreted your quote in roughly the following way, "I don't really care about the particulars of genetic classification--racial divisions based on skin color are useful because people with those skin colors behave in certain ways." If this isn't a fair paraphrase, please explain the subtleties I missed.

Also, I'm assuming that the "in good company" remark refers to the irritating habit liberals have of correctly identifying someone as a racist when they're behaving that way. I'm sure you must be sick of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol@racist. It's relative...also please define any vague labels you are going to use. tbh I try to stay away from words like "s.lut" or "racist" unless there is mounds of evidence supporting it.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Children can also tell the difference between blue eyes and brown eyes or thin and fat. Are these also races?

[/ QUOTE ]

W
O
W
!
!
!

[wacki]

*deleted cuz you covered all of your ends w/ the reproductively isolated*

I still have some objections as to *all* speciation lines being purely scientific but that's merely nit picking and academic BS.

[Case Closed]

[ QUOTE ]
But I was debating with people IRL (!) about this and I remember seeing a statement that I'm trying to figure out whether I like it or not.

[ QUOTE ]
Race is a social construct because it is an oversimplification of human genetic diversity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right now I do...

[/ QUOTE ]

I did not read the responses and I assume things got on a very far tangent. Your question is easy, yes race is a social construct. It was used to make rich white people think that it was ok to enslave black people. Saying their brains were naturally smaller and therefore they were not capable of the same thought processes that white people were capable of.

[Skidoo]

In that case, Neanderthalis could have all of us picking cotton, since he had a larger brain than any of the current humans.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
I remember seeing a statement that I'm trying to figure out whether I like it or not:

[ QUOTE ]
Race is a social construct because it is an oversimplification of human genetic diversity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right now I do...

[/ QUOTE ]It's an excellent summation.

It is generally more comforting for us humans to view the world in terms of absolutes, of discrete boundaries, of clear tendencies, of averages which have real meaning, etc. In actual fact, and the more we learn every day the more we realize this, our world is rules by variance and randomness, more than anything else.

There are no languages - only dialects (and linguistics are hard put to define even what a dialect is). There are no territorial boundaries - only lines on neatly drawn maps. There is no discrete beginning and no discrete end in measurements, no precise size anywhere (of islands, of rivers, of amoebas) -- just approximations.

The old example of the pile of pebbles applies here again: We "know" when we have a pile but we are unable to define exactly when it begins and when it ends, i.e. when precisely we have a pile instead of lotsa pebbles, or when precisely we have a hill instead of a pile.

Attempting to precisely define human races is like trying to define precisely those piles of pebbles.

Mickey Brausch

[Darryl_P]

[ QUOTE ]
The old example of the pile of pebbles applies here again: We "know" when we have a pile but we are unable to define exactly when it begins and when it ends, i.e. when precisely we have a pile instead of lotsa pebbles, or when precisely we have a hill instead of a pile.

Attempting to precisely define human races is like trying to define precisely those piles of pebbles.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yet for some reason, people don't quarrel too much about whether something is a pile or a hill or a mound. If people disagree, they might cover the subject for one or two sentences, reach a compromise for sake of argument and move on.

With race there's this underlying paranoia that by delineating it, we'll have slavery, genocide and a bunch of other nasty stuff. Sure it did indeed happen in the past, but why can't the fault be laid on the actual actions themselves rather than something only tangentially related?

Other peoples' paranoia shouldn't be my problem IMO.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The old example of the pile of pebbles applies here again: We "know" when we have a pile but we are unable to define exactly when it begins and when it ends, i.e. when precisely we have a pile instead of lotsa pebbles, or when precisely we have a hill instead of a pile.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Attempting to precisely define human races is like trying to define precisely those piles of pebbles.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yet for some reason, people don't quarrel too much about whether something is a pile or a hill or a mound.

[/ QUOTE ]My point exactly.

And we can only produce "formulas" or "rules" for such constructs as "mounds" or "piles" only by appoximating -- and with the greatest humility and trepidation.

I know a race when I see one of its members (I think). But I sure I'm careful about producing aphorisms about said member.

Mickey Brausch