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

[Rduke55]

[ QUOTE ]
But then we are back at the beginning. Race is useful as long as you have a useful definition of race. I agree with you that we currently do not have one, and that what most people think of when they think about race is really just skin color, or some other sort of superficial characteristic that probably conveys very little information about other similarities.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is more my point. Also, you got my post before I edited it.

[ QUOTE ]
Considering I have a genetics exam in like 20 hours, I am a FAR bigger fan of the 'ethnicity' characterization than I am the 'race' one. Ashkenazi Jews are the greatest thing ever to happen to genetics students, they are ALWAYS the answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

A problem I've run into in these discussions on this board is people not understanding differences between smaller groupings, such as ethnicity, and race as commonly defined.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But then we are back at the beginning. Race is useful as long as you have a useful definition of race. I agree with you that we currently do not have one, and that what most people think of when they think about race is really just skin color, or some other sort of superficial characteristic that probably conveys very little information about other similarities.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is more my point. Also, you got my post before I edited it.

[ QUOTE ]
Considering I have a genetics exam in like 20 hours, I am a FAR bigger fan of the 'ethnicity' characterization than I am the 'race' one. Ashkenazi Jews are the greatest thing ever to happen to genetics students, they are ALWAYS the answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

A problem I've run into in these discussions on this board is people not understanding differences between smaller groupings, such as ethnicity, and race as commonly defined.

[/ QUOTE ]

But is that really their fault? I mean, race is popularly defined to suit whatever ideologue happens to be sermonizing at the moment. I am not even sure that my own, first-impression understanding of what race is is actually the correct one. But I'm pretty comfortable simply dismissing it in general, and sticking with the far more useful (and similarly easy-to-determine) classifications of ethnicities. It is far more important for me to know that a person is French-Canadian than it is to know that they are caucasian, and its (generally) just as easy to find out. Look at them, they are white. Ask them, they are French-Canadian. The enormous difference in the usefulness of the two classifications makes the tiny task of asking or determining ethnicity well, well worth it.

[Taraz]

How about we restate the question as the following:

Is separating people by skin color and facial features a socially constructed way of classifying humanity?

I say yes since those particular features don't tell us anything else about a person's genes.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
How about we restate the question as the following:

Is separating people by skin color and facial features a socially constructed way of classifying humanity?

I say yes since those particular features don't tell us anything else about a person's genes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well of course, but that isn't really the question you are asking. What we want to know is if it is an obvious and useful classification, from a genetic standpoint. And the answer is probably no. Its an obvious one from a superficial, 'social' standpoint though. Its probably not a useful one at either of those levels.

[HeavilyArmed]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ 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.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're not too far off. I'm more than content to use all the information at hand even if it fails the PC racist test. Do you have any doubt about the correlation of American blacks and violent crime? Causation is not the issue, personal safety is. Do you doubt white flight? Can all those whites be making the same wrong assumption, that avoiding urban American blacks makes for a safer life? It's statistically sound, PC poison. I'll stick with the obvious, you are welcome to the social constructs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correlation does not equal causation. There are parts of Russia that are many times more dangerous statistically than urban American centers. Are the residents of these areas black? (Hint: no.)

Let me also ask you, would you feel more likely to be mugged by a black man who makes $100,000 a year, or a low-income white?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't live in or plan to go to Russia. I'll also ignore the tortured 'logic' involved in your analogy. I already dismissed the idea of causation as not bearing on this issue. You failed to address a single question I asked, no surprise. You are an excellent parrot. Your professors are no doubt proud. Your parents, not so much.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ 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.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're not too far off. I'm more than content to use all the information at hand even if it fails the PC racist test. Do you have any doubt about the correlation of American blacks and violent crime? Causation is not the issue, personal safety is. Do you doubt white flight? Can all those whites be making the same wrong assumption, that avoiding urban American blacks makes for a safer life? It's statistically sound, PC poison. I'll stick with the obvious, you are welcome to the social constructs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correlation does not equal causation. There are parts of Russia that are many times more dangerous statistically than urban American centers. Are the residents of these areas black? (Hint: no.)

Let me also ask you, would you feel more likely to be mugged by a black man who makes $100,000 a year, or a low-income white?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't live in or plan to go to Russia. I'll also ignore the tortured 'logic' involved in your analogy. I already dismissed the idea of causation as not bearing on this issue. You failed to address a single question I asked, no surprise. You are an excellent parrot. Your professors are no doubt proud. Your parents, not so much.

[/ QUOTE ]

For as much as you complain about parroting and shallow thinking, you make essentially this same exact response in nearly every thread you post in. You say something that you know will elicit emotional response, and then dole out your canned retort, basically some random combination of 'college professor, liberal, race card, mindless and naive.' Are you an attempt at a Turing machine?

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ 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.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're not too far off. I'm more than content to use all the information at hand even if it fails the PC racist test. Do you have any doubt about the correlation of American blacks and violent crime? Causation is not the issue, personal safety is. Do you doubt white flight? Can all those whites be making the same wrong assumption, that avoiding urban American blacks makes for a safer life? It's statistically sound, PC poison. I'll stick with the obvious, you are welcome to the social constructs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correlation does not equal causation. There are parts of Russia that are many times more dangerous statistically than urban American centers. Are the residents of these areas black? (Hint: no.)

Let me also ask you, would you feel more likely to be mugged by a black man who makes $100,000 a year, or a low-income white?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't live in or plan to go to Russia. I'll also ignore the tortured 'logic' involved in your analogy. I already dismissed the idea of causation as not bearing on this issue. You failed to address a single question I asked, no surprise. You are an excellent parrot. Your professors are no doubt proud. Your parents, not so much.

[/ QUOTE ]

For as much as you complain about parroting and shallow thinking, you make essentially this same exact response in nearly every thread you post in. You say something that you know will elicit emotional response, and then dole out your canned retort, basically some random combination of 'college professor, liberal, race card, mindless and naive.' Are you an attempt at a Turing machine?

[/ QUOTE ]

And also, you tend to ignore the posts which actually challenge your points and instead choose to respond only to the weak-sister, easy-target posts as in the above example. No doubt this post will draw your ire.

[HeavilyArmed]

[ QUOTE ]
I just don't see how race can be anything but a social construct since nobody can come up with any genetically based classification system for race.

Also, HeavilyArmed, I don't get it. You make your pit bull argument, someone calls you out for advocating a racist viewpoint, you get pissed off and take offense, but then you completely admit that you actually do hold that viewpoint.

[/ QUOTE ]

The modern play is to call 'racist' and that ends the argument. Turns out this joker was just that, an empty suit, no back up, no ideas.

[HeavilyArmed]

[ QUOTE ]
You say something that you know will elicit emotional response, and then dole out your canned retort, basically some random combination of 'college professor, liberal, race card, mindless and naive.'

[/ QUOTE ]

It's kinda like a freeway car wreck. I just can't help but look. SOme day I'll tire sparing with the indoctinated youth.

There's 'ignore' you know. What's your excuse?

[hmkpoker]

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.