Race is made up

[bogosghost1]

[Suicidesoldier#1]

SirPuzzle

Suicidesoldier#1

SirPuzzle

Suicidesoldier#1

SirPuzzle

I think what he's trying to say is that our judgment of what is significant versus what is not is a matter of subjective opinion.

Which he's correct on.

The thing is though is, well yeah, significance is based upon a judgment call and that judgment call depends on context.

He cited the fact that humans are 99.9% similar to each other. The problem though is he then goes on to assume that that .1% can only account for "minor differences". But at the same time he's saying importance/significance is subjective.

Who's to say that that 0.1% difference cannot account for very significant differences in the way people interact in a modern world? Furthermore another problem with this "Humans are 99.9% identical" is that humans are 99.9% similar in genotype, that doesn't mean that they are 99.9% identical in terms of phenotype traits. Genes/alleles do not have a linear impact on people's characteristics. Some genes/alleles have little to no noticeable impact on the characteristics of a person (or animal), some genes/alleles will create a noticeable trait in a person/animal.

So for example speaking of racial IQ differences, who's to say that that 0.1% difference cannot account for the differences in average IQ we observe in the races? Now of course people can argue over whether IQ is "intelligence" or not, but I think people are deluding themselves if they argue that what IQ does measure is not significant in our modern economy. How competent people are in reading comprehension, abstract reasoning, spacial reasoning, math ability, etc, etc is very important in how well they end up doing in a modern 1st world country.

Also notice how none of these arguments are at all connected to whether race is socially constructed or not, that is a red herring to the discussion. Even if race is a totally socially constructed concept that is not biologically useful, that doesn't mean that therefore there cannot be differences in average intelligence that correlate with people's skin color.

I personally have no horse in the race over whether race is a social construct or not, because as I've explained race being socially constructed does not necessarily have an impact on whether observed racial IQ differences are 100% due to environment or partially due to genetic differences in population groups. However I'm not on board with the "Race is a social construct" argument because I'm not a scientist, and there's a lot of political pressure for population geneticists to say race is made up.

Furthermore there's already information out there that is suggesting that race may actually be a biologically useful concept. I'm not saying that there's proof or anything close to that level of evidence, all I'm saying is there is data (statistical clustering of people based upon their alleles) that is to an extent pointing towards that.

Bottom line is though I'm not a population geneticist, so I'm not going to talk as if I am one and pretend that I know that race is a useful concept or it isn't. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't know, I'm going to wait and see when population geneticists gather more information/data over the years and see what they have to say. However I'm not going to listen to the ideologues who obviously are partaking in motivated reasoning to conclude that race is socially constructed.

Race *is* socially constructed. Skin color and I.Q. are not correlated, for obvious reasons, because 2 genes are responsible for skin color; in fact, if we were going to say, say, Africans had an average lower I.Q. due to genetics, if an African person breed with say, a European, and then the offspring got the intelligence traits but kept the skin color, then it would be an example of skin color being irrelevant.

Race has no scientific definition. Subspecies, maybe, different genes present in humans, sure. But race is literally non-existent in the first place. If you choose to define race to be 2 genes, that is what determines pigment levels in skin, so be it, but realize that also doesn't include things like intelligence.


As far as it goes, there's not really anything in that .1% to make a considerable difference; starfish and sea sponges lack brains, insect brains are far less complex than human brains. But because humans are so similar, and the differences are so minor in and in areas that are nigh irrelevant, other than common mutations which take millions of years to develop, which are random in any case and not associated with any particular group of people, to try to connect an entire group of people to that is nothing more than a logical fallacy.

There may one day be a human that's more intelligent, say a bigger heart which pumps more blood to the brain, a body accustomed to the rich diets of industrialized words. Perhaps even bigger brains.

Uuh I know you're aware of the difference between correlation and causation. Why you mistook one for the other is something I don't understand.

Skin color and average IQ are correlated. People with black skin have lower average IQ levels than people with lighter skin.

Obviously skin pigmentation is not causing the lower IQ, no one is saying that. I am pointing out though the fact that there is a correlation between the two variables. That's just a fact, you're just wrong if you say otherwise.

"if an African person breed with say, a European, and then the offspring got the intelligence traits but kept the skin color, then it would be an example of skin color being irrelevant."

Again no one is saying skin color determines IQ or that IQ determines skin color. No one is arguing causation here, all I am pointing out is a statistical correlation which is factually accurate. However if you look at the average IQ level of people who have a white parent and a black parent, you actually find that the average IQ level of this group of people is between African's and whites. So actually still the correlation does hold even in this case.

"Race has no scientific definition. Subspecies, maybe, different genes present in humans, sure. But race is literally non-existent in the first place. If you choose to define race to be 2 genes, that is what determines pigment levels in skin, so be it"

Did I say I'm defining race based upon 2 genes? That's not what I am arguing, nor is it what people are arguing who know some of the science behind population genetics and are arguing that race is a biologically useful concept. Rather what people are arguing is that race is a biologically useful concept based upon the differences in allele frequencies of the racial groups. It's not just a few allele frequencies by the way, it's a huge amount of alleles that have a different level of presence in the racial groups.

All humans share the same genes, no one is saying there is a gene that defines race. What people are arguing is that it is the amount of alleles of these genes found in the population groups that justify race.

Now see this is why I say I am not completely on board with the "race is a social construct" stuff. Because we are still learning a lot about genes, alleles, and the frequencies between the races/ancestral population groups of these things. We only discovered the human genome about 10 years ago, there's still a lot of research to be done on this topic. I'm going to wait as more information comes out, I'm not an advocate of motivated reasoning and jumping to conclusions long before we actually have solid information on this topic.

"As far as it goes, there's not really anything in that .1% to make a considerable difference"

You cannot make this argument a priori or based on logic alone. It's an empirical question, meaning the evidence will determine the truth value of this proposition. Making analogies to other animals is irrelevant because as I pointed out how a gene/allele impacts an animal's characteristics is not linear.

Also you're going against what you said previously which is significance is a subjective judgment call dependent on context.

"other than common mutations which take millions of years to develop, which are random in any case and not associated with any particular group of people"

Again you're just making all these assumptions that are not based upon evidence. These things are not true. You say they are random even though we already know that the races are still evolving at this current movement and the genes that are being selected are different in the racial groups. This is not "random" I.E. based upon genetic drift, no we already know that there are genes being selected for right now and very recently, and the genes that are being selected are different among the racial groups.

"Perhaps even bigger brains."

The racial groups have different sizes in average brain size just to let you know..........

I invite you to read a book called A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade, he explains in detail what I am talking about here. Many people have criticized the book so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the next thing you try to do to discredit the book. However I must point out the problem with this is the criticism of the book is about the second half of the book which is largely based upon speculation of the scientific information he describes in his first half. However the first half of his book which is mainly just centered around discussing what population geneticists have uncovered about race ever since the human genome has been uncovered. This first half of the book is not controversial, it's just citing what population geneticists have found and discussed in peer reviewed papers. I've read the book, but I only read the first half of it. I stopped reading it once it got to the speculation part because I'm not interested in speculation rather I was interested in the facts.

Race and I.Q. have never been confirmed to have a correlation.

I suppose it comes down to, where are your facts? What are your sources for why you believe this is the case; thus far, it hasn't been proven.



Brain size, at the moment, doesn't exactly determine intelligence, which is why midgets tend to have the same level of intelligence as ordinary people. In could hypothetically, I mean with a bigger brain comes the potential for more intelligence, but it doesn't seem to be the case in humans.

As well, it was in response to your correlation of race and skin color. xp

"Race and I.Q. have never been confirmed to have a correlation."

Well I'm sorry but if you can say that then you literally have 0 knowledge about IQ at all. If you can say this with a straight face then you have never done any reading about this topic at all. Which is okay, I mean I'm not criticizing you for it I'm just telling you the truth.

Average racial IQ differences has been measured for about 100 years now. Average racial IQ differences is not a controversial fact at all, anyone who knows anything about this knows this is true. What is controversial is the explanation of why the racial IQ gaps exist. Even people like Tim Wise acknowledge the racial IQ gap. The point being that the people who have every reason to be biased towards the proposition that race and IQ have no correlation, even they do not deny the correlation because there is just overwhelming evidence that there is a gap.

"where are your facts? What are your sources for why you believe this is the case; thus far, it hasn't been proven." Everywhere, and I mean that's not an exaggeration. As I pointed out the correlation and racial IQ gap has been measured and observed for almost 100 years now consistently. There are thousands of studies that have measured racial IQ gaps and found the consistent 85 African American, 100 white, 103-105 Asian IQ gap.

"Brain size, at the moment, doesn't exactly determine intelligence" it correlates positively, that's the point.

Then it should be easy to provide proof. rolleyes

Once again, many of those studies have been debunked.

[Suicidesoldier#1]

SirPuzzle

Suicidesoldier#1

SirPuzzle

Suicidesoldier#1

SirPuzzle

Uuh I know you're aware of the difference between correlation and causation. Why you mistook one for the other is something I don't understand.

Skin color and average IQ are correlated. People with black skin have lower average IQ levels than people with lighter skin.

Obviously skin pigmentation is not causing the lower IQ, no one is saying that. I am pointing out though the fact that there is a correlation between the two variables. That's just a fact, you're just wrong if you say otherwise.

"if an African person breed with say, a European, and then the offspring got the intelligence traits but kept the skin color, then it would be an example of skin color being irrelevant."

Again no one is saying skin color determines IQ or that IQ determines skin color. No one is arguing causation here, all I am pointing out is a statistical correlation which is factually accurate. However if you look at the average IQ level of people who have a white parent and a black parent, you actually find that the average IQ level of this group of people is between African's and whites. So actually still the correlation does hold even in this case.

"Race has no scientific definition. Subspecies, maybe, different genes present in humans, sure. But race is literally non-existent in the first place. If you choose to define race to be 2 genes, that is what determines pigment levels in skin, so be it"

Did I say I'm defining race based upon 2 genes? That's not what I am arguing, nor is it what people are arguing who know some of the science behind population genetics and are arguing that race is a biologically useful concept. Rather what people are arguing is that race is a biologically useful concept based upon the differences in allele frequencies of the racial groups. It's not just a few allele frequencies by the way, it's a huge amount of alleles that have a different level of presence in the racial groups.

All humans share the same genes, no one is saying there is a gene that defines race. What people are arguing is that it is the amount of alleles of these genes found in the population groups that justify race.

Now see this is why I say I am not completely on board with the "race is a social construct" stuff. Because we are still learning a lot about genes, alleles, and the frequencies between the races/ancestral population groups of these things. We only discovered the human genome about 10 years ago, there's still a lot of research to be done on this topic. I'm going to wait as more information comes out, I'm not an advocate of motivated reasoning and jumping to conclusions long before we actually have solid information on this topic.

"As far as it goes, there's not really anything in that .1% to make a considerable difference"

You cannot make this argument a priori or based on logic alone. It's an empirical question, meaning the evidence will determine the truth value of this proposition. Making analogies to other animals is irrelevant because as I pointed out how a gene/allele impacts an animal's characteristics is not linear.

Also you're going against what you said previously which is significance is a subjective judgment call dependent on context.

"other than common mutations which take millions of years to develop, which are random in any case and not associated with any particular group of people"

Again you're just making all these assumptions that are not based upon evidence. These things are not true. You say they are random even though we already know that the races are still evolving at this current movement and the genes that are being selected are different in the racial groups. This is not "random" I.E. based upon genetic drift, no we already know that there are genes being selected for right now and very recently, and the genes that are being selected are different among the racial groups.

"Perhaps even bigger brains."

The racial groups have different sizes in average brain size just to let you know..........

I invite you to read a book called A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade, he explains in detail what I am talking about here. Many people have criticized the book so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the next thing you try to do to discredit the book. However I must point out the problem with this is the criticism of the book is about the second half of the book which is largely based upon speculation of the scientific information he describes in his first half. However the first half of his book which is mainly just centered around discussing what population geneticists have uncovered about race ever since the human genome has been uncovered. This first half of the book is not controversial, it's just citing what population geneticists have found and discussed in peer reviewed papers. I've read the book, but I only read the first half of it. I stopped reading it once it got to the speculation part because I'm not interested in speculation rather I was interested in the facts.

Race and I.Q. have never been confirmed to have a correlation.

I suppose it comes down to, where are your facts? What are your sources for why you believe this is the case; thus far, it hasn't been proven.



Brain size, at the moment, doesn't exactly determine intelligence, which is why midgets tend to have the same level of intelligence as ordinary people. In could hypothetically, I mean with a bigger brain comes the potential for more intelligence, but it doesn't seem to be the case in humans.

As well, it was in response to your correlation of race and skin color. xp

"Race and I.Q. have never been confirmed to have a correlation."

Well I'm sorry but if you can say that then you literally have 0 knowledge about IQ at all. If you can say this with a straight face then you have never done any reading about this topic at all. Which is okay, I mean I'm not criticizing you for it I'm just telling you the truth.

Average racial IQ differences has been measured for about 100 years now. Average racial IQ differences is not a controversial fact at all, anyone who knows anything about this knows this is true. What is controversial is the explanation of why the racial IQ gaps exist. Even people like Tim Wise acknowledge the racial IQ gap. The point being that the people who have every reason to be biased towards the proposition that race and IQ have no correlation, even they do not deny the correlation because there is just overwhelming evidence that there is a gap.

"where are your facts? What are your sources for why you believe this is the case; thus far, it hasn't been proven." Everywhere, and I mean that's not an exaggeration. As I pointed out the correlation and racial IQ gap has been measured and observed for almost 100 years now consistently. There are thousands of studies that have measured racial IQ gaps and found the consistent 85 African American, 100 white, 103-105 Asian IQ gap.

"Brain size, at the moment, doesn't exactly determine intelligence" it correlates positively, that's the point.

Then it should be easy to provide proof. rolleyes

Once again, many of those studies have been debunked.

Well if you want a convenient source, here is what an APA task force reported

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/correlation/intelligence.pdf

I'm surprised you don't know this though, have you ever read anything on IQ before? If you haven't then okay I see.

The PDF is long, if you just want to skip to the part where they talk about the different average scores of the racial groups skip to page 92 of the report (which is page 16 of the PDF file) where it says "Mean Scores of Different Ethnic Groups"

The summary and conclusions section also restates different average IQ scores of racial groups (like black and whites) "African American IQ scores have long averaged
about 15 points below those of Whites, with correspondingly
lower scores on academic achievement tests."

I've heard of it, I've always seen the sources debunked several times, or the differences were negligible. There's never been a gene found associated with it. Unless you know of the genes?

For instance, many of the tests were done incorrectly, or improperly reported test scores. Many areas polled very poor areas for instance, which will naturally have lower education and thus lower I.Q. scores, and then tested in areas of high wealth, the people of which tend to be better educated; in one case, they took information from people who were in special needs and compared that to the average person, which will obviously skew the results. Obviously, not all of America has been polled by national I.Q. tests, so, it would be impossible to actually present knowledge on every American, since it doesn't exist. There is no true standard.



For instance here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Differences_in_Intelligence_%28book%29

"A more egregious example is provided by his treatment of the Eyferth (1961) study of two groups of illegitimate children fathered by (mostly) American black and white servicemen and brought up by their (carefully matched) German mothers. Eyferth reported an average IQ of 96.5 for the mixed race children and of 97.2 for the whites. Lynn reduces the former number to 94 to compensate for use of an old test, and compares it, not with the score of the white sample, but with an average IQ of 100 for German children. He is thus able to conclude that the IQ of these mixed race children is half way between that of Americans and Africans. He derives the same conclusion from the Weinberg, Scarr, and Waldman (1992) transracial adoption study since, at the 10-year follow-up, the mixed race children had an average IQ of 94, mid-way between the 102 of the white children and the 89 of the black children. He omits to mention one of the more salient features of this follow-up, namely, that there had been substantial attrition in the white sample—with a loss of those children with lower IQ scores, resulting in an overestimate of the white group's IQ by some 6 points.

"Much labour has gone into this book. But I fear it is the sort of book that gives IQ testing a bad name. As a source of references, it will be useful to some. As a source of information, it should be treated with some suspicion. On the other hand, Lynn's preconceptions are so plain, and so pungently expressed, that many readers will be suspicious from the outset."



A lot of times, this information is in some cases, completely made up.

Not to mention, it doesn't mean their I.Q. is lower even if they scored lower.

[Kaltros]

SirPuzzle

I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude to you but I don't think you are understanding what I am saying at all. Like your entire argument just doesn't even make sense in the context of this discussion.

He's got a set of beliefs on the issue, and he doesn't care about evidence. He just wants to protect his beliefs on that issue. His belief in equality is more important to him than unpleasant facts.

[junebi]

DawnFall

Yes, people come from different places in the world and have different amounts of pigmentation, but being darker does NOT equate to being bad nor does being lighter equate to being good! Skin color does not and cannot determine who you are as a person.

In this world, it does.

I'm Asian. My mother's side has French blood and my father's side has Chinese blood. I came out very pale while my siblings are very dark. I'm privileged in the sense that I will never, ever hear anyone suggest I bleach my skin with creamers or that they wouldn't me because of my skintone. My siblings? They hear it. My sister spent a year trying to bleach her skin to look like mine. It's honestly one of the most heartwrenching things. She doesn't feel beautiful because the media doesn't portray her skin tone the way they do mine (if they do at all; it's not common to see dark-skinned people on TV or in movies as a representation of good).

US's history of slavery and genocide was/is also never properly addressed. In Germany, it's illegal to be a Nazi. They have reminders everywhere of what the Nazis did and they teach it in schools. US schools? Kids wear handmade pilgrim and Native American headwear and have lunch together like everything is peachy. Because that's the only thing that happened, right? And they're like "slaves traveled in boats and worked" but they never tell you just how bad it was. We're still covering up and writing people of color as animals. People and the media make a celebrity (even victims) out of white murderers, saying he was very intelligent, very calculating, very charming. Black suspects AND victims are seen as thuggish, animalistic, and disgusting. It's all social. And the only reason Asian people get treated better is because we threw black people under the bus because we didn't wanna get treated the same way. Now it's ingrained into our culture as well.

Look at our language. Synonyms of black (evil, darkness, death), synonyms of white (purity, innocence, fair). It's deeply ingrained as a result of shitty people in the past who didn't give a crap about people of color and never made up for it. Sorry if this seemed like a rant. It really isn't biggrin Just a little history lesson with personal anecdotes. You gotta help undo many, many years of all of the above to fix racism. Media, politics, everything.

[junebi]

Suicidesoldier#1

Race *is* socially constructed. Skin color and I.Q. are not correlated

I agree with you here and would like to extend that IQ also has a lot of social constructs to it. It's a culturally biased test. I don't know jack about Ulysses and I can't recall the minute details of Twain's works yet that's the kind of stuff you can expect on the IQ test. From another country and don't speak English? Your score would tank. Live in a poorly funded neighborhood with terrible education standards (if any at all) and a severely lacking library? Your score would tank.

If I put questions like "Translate this to pinyin: 你們的中文不好" or "Write about [subject] in haiku format" on the IQ test, I guarantee you that most white Americans would fail. Then I use that as a statistic to illustrate that white people aren't smart. Not very fair, is it? There aren't any IQ tests in many countries because they understand it's a toxic standard. You're either driven to learn or can't be according to the standards. That's all the IQ test illustrates.

I also don't know how you're talking to that guy. He's literally regurgitating things from Mein Kompf with his "genetics" bull. I read that s**t last semester and he's not very different from what the guy was saying about race. It's unsettling.

[junebi]

N3bu

Kaltros

He meant that Muslims weren't doing enough to discourage extremists. Especially a country like Saudi Arabia, which funds violent groups and exports the extremist Wahhabi version of Islam to other countries.

Of course the Saudi's aren't doing much of anything, despite there apparent contributions to fighting ISIS. They've been backing Wahhabi fundamentalism for centuries, they aren't going to back off it so easily now.

But believe it or not, most Muslims don't live in Saudi Arabia. Most don't even live in the Middle East, and so most don't care about rising Fundamentalism there. And let's be perfectly honest, we didn't care much until some guys ran some planes into some buildings.

Exactly.

When someone is a Christian they are not constantly asked their position on the holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade, the extermination of Native Americans, or any of the thousands of atrocities committed by Christians. So why do Muslims get asked about terrorism, Jewish people, about Israel, and are grouped in with specific bad people while Christians are not required to explain themselves.

Social construct.

[Sir Fuggery]

So if race doesnt exist, why are blacks and "POC" considered a race? why is it that only the white race is considered to not exist and not have any solidarity?

[Phoenix Songbird]

KaiserBill

So if race doesnt exist, why are blacks and "POC" considered a race? why is it that only the white race is considered to not exist and not have any solidarity?

Because people have been using the wrong terminology.

Though if you want to look at cases of why black people have been identified as other -- especially in cases of war or other cultural issues -- it's because making the identified enemy "inhuman" or something "other," makes it a lot easier for one to treat them as a lesser being.

[Sir Fuggery]

Phoenix Songbird

KaiserBill

So if race doesnt exist, why are blacks and "POC" considered a race? why is it that only the white race is considered to not exist and not have any solidarity?

Because people have been using the wrong terminology.

Though if you want to look at cases of why black people have been identified as other -- especially in cases of war or other cultural issues -- it's because making the identified enemy "inhuman" or something "other," makes it a lot easier for one to treat them as a lesser being.

lol thats been used for everyone. germans were "the huns". japanese were "the japs and the gooks".

when have whites ever gone in full scale war against blacks? cept maybe the zulu war, which they started and we finished

[Phoenix Songbird]

KaiserBill

Phoenix Songbird

KaiserBill

So if race doesnt exist, why are blacks and "POC" considered a race? why is it that only the white race is considered to not exist and not have any solidarity?

Because people have been using the wrong terminology.

Though if you want to look at cases of why black people have been identified as other -- especially in cases of war or other cultural issues -- it's because making the identified enemy "inhuman" or something "other," makes it a lot easier for one to treat them as a lesser being.

lol thats been used for everyone. germans were "the huns". japanese were "the japs and the gooks".

when have whites ever gone in full scale war against blacks? cept maybe the zulu war, which they started and we finished

To be honest, I couldn't tell you either way if any European countries have blatantly gone to war with any African countries. History isn't my main forte. But there is the well-known example of when Europeans stole them into slavery.

[Sir Fuggery]

Phoenix Songbird

KaiserBill

Phoenix Songbird

KaiserBill

So if race doesnt exist, why are blacks and "POC" considered a race? why is it that only the white race is considered to not exist and not have any solidarity?

Because people have been using the wrong terminology.

Though if you want to look at cases of why black people have been identified as other -- especially in cases of war or other cultural issues -- it's because making the identified enemy "inhuman" or something "other," makes it a lot easier for one to treat them as a lesser being.

lol thats been used for everyone. germans were "the huns". japanese were "the japs and the gooks".

when have whites ever gone in full scale war against blacks? cept maybe the zulu war, which they started and we finished

To be honest, I couldn't tell you either way if any European countries have blatantly gone to war with any African countries. History isn't my main forte. But there is the well-known example of when Europeans stole them into slavery.

some europeans stole them, others bought them from african kings fair and square. others bought them from the arabs, who had conquered much of africa and enslaved over 2 million of them.

[Universalism]

I feel that race really doesn't matter at all. Yet, it's a difference, and there seems to be a pattern of certain people who come to power leveraging those differences to gain influence over others. I'm sure there are many people who are genuinely stupid enough to discriminate based on skin color, but my guess is that this sort of thing had a substantial beginning in corrupt politics millennia ago.

It's one of many examples of a majority oppressing a minority for their own benefit.

It's sad that this takes place in the world. I wish everyone would understand a very simple fact: we are all alive. That is a beautiful and amazing fact that unites us all, because life is a miracle. It doesn't matter what your race is, what your religion or lack thereof is, what your sexual orientation or gender identification is, and so on.

We are all alive, and we are all one. It's time we start acting that way.