Does race exist?

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by Phill, Apr 8, 2016.

?

Is the race concept

  1. Invalid

    88.9%
  2. Valid but uninformative

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  3. Valid and informative

    11.1%
  4. Unsure

    0 vote(s)
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  1. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Phill, whatever you think is irrelevant is, in reality, irrelevant.

    People's ancestry and "genomic similarity" does not really exist as you think it does. Two people of European origins, who live in the same country or even community may not be similar genetically. For example:

    Among the first genomes completely typed were those of James Watson and Craig Venter, two U.S. geneticists of European origin; they share more alleles with Seong-Jin Kim, a Korean scientist (1,824,482 and 1,736,340, respectively) than with each other (1,715,851). This does not mean that two random Europeans are expected to be genetically closer to Koreans than to each other, but certainly highlights the coarseness of racial categorizations. On average, nearby populations tend to resemble each other more than distant ones, but individual members of the same population, Watson and Venter in this case, can be very different. In short, if races are defined as subspecies, there is no such thing in humans. The best way to know what is in a person’s DNA is to study that person’s DNA.

    How would you classify Watson and Venter? As Korean?

    Or is Seong-Jin Kim a European? Since they are closer to Seong-Jin Kim genetically than they are to each other, despite both of them being of European descent and both from the US.

    If we were to apply your classification of "shared ancestry", it would be clear that neither Watson and Venter shared an ancestry with each other. But being European, they also do not share an ancestry with Seong-Jin Kim.

    Humans are not that genetically diverse. Your application of "shared ancestry" is simply a reflection of invading forces in the UK, for example. But there is no evidence of shared ancestry within the UK itself. To wit, people from different counties in the UK, do not share an ancestry with each other and are very much genetically not the same at all under your application of "race".

    What we now know, with the advance of the knowledge of DNA and the study of genes and biology, that we are not that diverse and any differences literally only exist externally by way of looks, which are affected by diet, health and fitness and location as early human populations had to adapt to the climates they migrated to, which resulted in only minor changes to their appearance and diet, but it did not create or result in different "races".

    I think you need to go back and read through our exchange about this and you might see where you went wrong.

    Nordid is a major race of what? What is a "major race"?

    How are Nordic people biologically different to others, exactly?

    What do they have, that no other groups around the world have that would set them apart from every other human on this planet to the point where they are a different species of hominid to classify as a different "race" in the last 12,000 or so years?

    For example, Norway's genetic history shows and tracks human migration from parts of Asia and Europe, not to mention Africa as well. So how are they a "major race" by your definition?

    What is a "sub-race"? One that is less pure than the other?

    If that is the case, then "Nordic" race is not a "major race".

    To claim that each of these groups share an ancestry is to spit on their history and ignore it altogether. The people of the UK do not even share an ancestry. It is laughable that you could think or believe they do. Why do you think they do when they are so genetically distinct from each other and show migration from different parts of Europe and Asia, not to mention the Middle East and Africa? How do you determine they share an ancestry? What ancestry are they sharing? From when? Do you have a time line or some sort? Anthropological evidence that the people of Scotland shared an ancestry with the people who inhabited the South of England?

    And if you continue to use the language of white supremacist and Nazi's, I will call you out on it.

    You have contradicted yourself in this thread and your IQ thread. You are basing your "shared ancestry" and "race" based on colour. So which "race" is more advanced if we take your "shared ancestry" into consideration, considering how numerous races would exist if you were taken seriously.. In short, there would be no "race" because each individual would pretty much be classified as a different race. You have yet to support any of your arguments with science and you have instead relied on terminology and white supremacist writings. Your reliance on Darwin, is hysterical, when we consider what we have learned since Darwin traveled the world and made his observation based on a belief that stems from colonisation of different Continents and worlds and classifying people based on colour alone.

    I am not lying about what you said.
     
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  3. Bells Staff Member

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    You literally have not read any of the scientific papers presented in this thread, have you?

    I can only assume that you are now trolling.

    What you are arguing makes it very relevant. It is known, genetically known, that the various tribes that existed in the UK did not "share an ancestry". You have groups in the UK who are genetically distinct from neighbouring groups and you think they shared an ancestry? Of what? Of living on the same large island while having completely different and distinct cultures, languages and even genes?

    You keep claiming they "share an ancestry" and you have yet to provide a time line, yet to provide any anthropological or archaeological evidence or any biological or genetic evidence to support this. A far reaching genetic study of people across the UK clearly show that you are wrong and you are saying it is a falsehood? Prove that the genetic study I linked earlier in the thread is based on falsehood. Provide some scientific evidence or stop wasting people's time.

    You are the one posting here and using Nazi terminology. No one else is.

    No. I will ban you for breaching this site's rules on racial stereotyping and racist arguments.

    But what "race" would they be? How would you know what race they are? Would you go by looks alone? DNA testing? And then what? You've classified them as being a race of some sort.. And then what? What is the point of it? Would you be able to show a genetic and biological difference? The difference would be no more different than exist within Norway or within any "Nordic" race. So how would you classify the race then?

    Provide some scientific explanation with scientific papers and/or studies to explain this.

    Biology and genetics clearly show that there is no such thing as "race". Advances and knowledge about DNA, genetics and biology has clearly shown that there is no such thing as "race". And you have not provided anything whatsoever remotely scientific to support your argument in this thread. Your say so and linking to white supremacists means diddly squat.

    Where did you show these differences? You just claimed they existed. You did not provide any scientific papers to support this view. Where is the DNA analysis, for example?

    You are now directly entering woo woo phase by claiming that the differences are greater than in many animal sub species. There is absolutely no scientific basis for your assertion. There is a distinct lack of diversity for Homo sapiens. Even in Africa, which is the most diverse, the differences are minute and cannot really compare to species of animals and within animal groups.
     
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  5. Phill Banned Banned

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    144
    No, what I would do is look at modern genome reads, rather than cherry picking the first error filled ones to dishonestly back up my bankrupt position.

    "The study of Ahn et al. (2009) suggests that the pairwise distances among three individuals, a Korean (“SJK”), Craig Venter and James Watson, measured by multilocus ASD, are roughly similar despite the distinct geographical origin of SJK in relation to Venter and Watson (see also their Fig. 2E). These results are surprising in light of our model for n, which predicts that for worldwide distant populations (FST > 0.13) the probability for such an occurrence is virtually zero given as little as 200 independent and informative SNPs (Appendix F, Fig. F.1). In fact, with roughly 3.5 million SNPs sequenced in each individual genome, the pairwise distances Venter–Watson and Venter–SJK (or Watson–SJK) must show substantial discrepancy, since the ratio of average pairwise distances RAD is above 1.3 already at FST = 0.10 (see Fig. 5A). The paradoxical result is most likely an artifact of the high error rate and low coverage in Watson’s SNP calling (Yngvadottir et al., 2009)."

    You honestly believe Watson clusters genetically with Koreans?

    There is no arbitrary value for "that genetically diverse". Humans have differences. Brain differences among them. Your claims to the contrary are just fiction. All organisms share ancestry to a greater or lesser degree. Saying any organisms "don't share ancestry" is simply wrong. It's relative, not binary.

    It's you that went wrong.

    It's a cluster that contains subclusters. Nordid is a subrace of Europid. Europid is a subrace of Caucasoid.

    I guess you could write a book on it. Check John Baker's "Race". Of course you label him as a "white supremacist" for reasons known to yourself. He's still correct though.

    Genetic and ancestral distinctness. It's really not complex.

    If the an extant group show genetic similarity, it doesn't matter how that group historically came to be.

    I guess you just fail to understand the simple concept of hierarchical taxonomy. Isn't that high school biology?

    Nonsense. Where is your data plotting the British versus other Europeans. The British share ancestry, versus other Europeans. Maybe you think this means they are the same. Is this what's confusing you?

    I'm guessing not parroting Marxist platitudes make me a Nazi. So be it. Do you think I care what names you call me? It reflects more on your credibility than mine.

    I really laughed out loud reading this. You manage to pack in all the strawman misrepresentation and misunderstandings. Of course you will never admit the simple fact of applying ancestry based classification to humans. Why don't you argue the same point for other animals? Go on about "fur color" and "classifying individuals separately".

    Yes you are.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2016
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    We aren't. We do it all the time.

    It's just that you can't group humans like that and end up with the sociological races you need for your other bs.

    So what about otherwise closely related people - cousins, say - some of whom clearly have Neandertal ancestors and some of whom apparently don't.? Neandertals were an entirely different species, after all - that's pretty distant. You prepared to put cousins in different races based on ancestry?
    But if this happened - and the facts suggest it did - at least some Europeans are more closely related to those Siberians than the Native Americans are. They have more recent common ancestry. So how are you going to classify your races?
    All you need to do is tell me how you would assign race labels to three peoples that as of now seem to have been established as at least plausible: the Siberians from which the American reds split, the first-wave reds of America 20k years ago (last possible common ancestor with the Siberians 20,000 years BP), and those whites of Europe who last shared ancestry with the Siberians about 10,000 years BP - much more recently than the first wave American reds. You have four choices. Pick one.
    The Welsh, Irish, Scots, English, and Gypsies, are all separate ancestry groups. They each have different ancestors. That was your criterion, remember? You can verify that by all the same ways you verify your other ancestry based races: self-identification, geneology, different languages, etc.

    No, it doesn't. You posted that yourself - a 3D map of "genomic similarity" in which none of the clusters matched a single one of the US sociological races. (Which is what you meant by "traditional race concept". You certainly did not mean the US original race concept, in which the Irish and Swedes were black. And you did not mean the Brazilian traditional race concept, in which Michael Jordan and Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne and Michelle Obama would be usually white. And you did not mean the South African race concept, which divided the human world into black, white, coloured, and Asian).
     
  8. Phill Banned Banned

    Messages:
    144
    You end up with biological races.

    So what about otherwise closely related people, who are not closely related? Who are these imaginary cousins? Can you give a more specific case?

    No they don't

    What are you talking about exactly?

    I don't know what you are talking about. Are you just making this up?

    No, you are just making this up. The data shows the English are not a single group.

    I mean the Blumenbach partition, East Asians, Caucasoids, etc. Do I need to repeat myself thousands of times? Will you ever admit you are wrong?
     
  9. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,888
    I think it is obvious that you are a sock puppet of waiter_2001. This strangely confused post is almost identical to this post by Waiter_2001.

    Reported as a sock puppet.
     
  10. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Can you provide a link to that quote. Be mindful, I know the actual paper this is pulled from.

    Well under your definition of "race", he could very well be.

    Two men of European descent were further apart genetically than they were to a Korean man. Which should tell you just how wrong you are in your understanding of "race".

    And there is no evidence in the paper that it was due to a high error rate.

    If we were to take you seriously, then it would mean that each individual would be a separate or distinct race.

    Brain difference, as you put it, is affected by environment more than anything else. The survey you quoted from in the IQ thread even distinctly stated this. Are you now saying the survey you posted is just fiction?

    We all share ancestry, but not in the way you are trying to argue in this thread. Shared ancestry does not indicate "race". At all. Nor is "race" indicative of shared ancestry. Far from it.

    You still haven't answered the question.

    And if the Nordic are a "major race", a major race of what? Caucasians? Which makes Caucasians what? Another major race? If the Nordics are a 'sub race' of Caucasians, how can they be classified as a "major race"?

    And you are still to scientifically prove that "race" even exists biologically or genetically. Where is the science? Where is the DNA evidence that clearly shows that Homo sapiens have branched out into different races of hominids? Because that is what another race would entail.

    Oh dear lord..

    The man is a white supremacist because he keeps harping on about the "ethnic problem". The best chapter is when he writes about Hitler, chapter 4 I believe, and what Baker classified as the "Jewish problem", whining that not all authors and philosophers were addressing "the Jewish problem" in a consistent manner if at all. By page 60, he is complaining that Hitler's writing of Mein Kampf failed to correctly address the differences between Jews and "the Aryan" so much so that it became confusing as to who the Aryan actually was. And you are surprised that I consider him to be a white supremacist?

    And the book is not scientific. Please provide scientific papers and/or studies that support your argument in this thread.

    Please provide scientific studies and/or papers that support this theory of yours that the Nordic people are a different race because of "genetic and ancestral distinctness".

    If it isn't that complex, you should have no issue in finding scientific papers to support your argument. Keep in mind that this new "race" came about within the last 12,000 years, so fairly recent in terms of human evolution, so it shouldn't be hard for you to find biological and genetic evidence of it.

    Despite the lack of diversity in Homo sapiens, what differences there are are minute and no, do not classify as new or different races.

    One last time, please provide scientific biological and genetic proof that a) race exists and b) that the Nordic are a "major race".

    In short, Phill, back up your claims with actual scientific data. It shouldn't be hard for you to do. Where is the biological and genetic proof that the Nordic people are a "major race"?

    This is a science forum. You need to be able to support your claims with actual scientific data.

    And yet more evidence that you failed to read the actual genetic and DNA study that was conducted in the UK, which literally tracked migration in Europe and in the UK.

    Does actual science scare you?

    Well you are parroting white supremacists and Nazi's, and linking works by white supremacists.

    You have yet to provide anything actually scientific. Yet you keep demanding others provide more, which you fail to read or even understand or attempt to understand. By any definition, it just makes you a troll.

    At this point, you aren't even making any sense.

    You have once again failed to address or provide any scientific proof to support your statements in this thread.

    You have consistently failed to explain with scientific evidence, that "race" even exists despite repeated requests that you do so. What little science you did post, you either misrepresented it (such as the survey in the IQ thread) or you failed to actually understand it.

    You have consistently failed to read or even attempt to understand the many scientific papers and studies that were presented in this thread, preferring instead to demand more proof while failing to provide any for yourself, with the exception of "Race" by John Baker, which is literally a handbook for white supremacist and is not in any way, scientific.

    You do not even seem to understand what you mean by "shared ancestry" and you have clearly contradicted yourself and even did so with diagrams, which is, from our standpoint, pretty ridiculous.
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    If you want to. They won't match your sociological races. They won't match your IQ distribution either. Not according to your links and evidence, sculptor's links and evidence, etc. Look what happened when you tried to circle the black and the white race on your graph.
    You need to look at your evidence. That partition doesn't match either the sociological races or any of these genetic links you posted. You do remember what happened when you tried to circle just a couple of your races on that graph you posted, right?
    So more races yet. Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Gypsy, and whatever you plan to do with the English. What's your point?
    I'm talking about you trying to assign racial labels to ancestry groups. I'm handing you people from three major ancestry groups, and wondering how you plan to label them by race. You have a person from the Siberian tribes that were the source of the first wave American immigration, a person from the American immigration first wave peoples who last shared an ancestor with the Siberians 1000 generations ago, and a person from the Russian tribes who last shared an ancestor with the Siberians less than 500 generations ago. How many races do you see, and who is in each one?
     
  12. Phill Banned Banned

    Messages:
    144
    Yes, I remember you were saying "the French cluster" to refer to the Caucasoid cluster so I drew a rough circle round the Caucasoid cluster to clarify what you were going on about. As I said at the time I didn't exactly run a PCA centroid algorithm on it. It's great that you yourself identified the Caucasoid cluster though, even if you can't bring yourself to use the word.

    Your question is nonsense. You yourself classified them as Russian, Siberian and Native American ancestry groups, so that's what they must be given the premise of your question. It makes no difference if they shared one ancestor with another group 500 or 1000 generations ago. I'm not sure what percentage that is given pedigree collapse and population numbers, but it's tiny. Shared ancestry is inferred by genomic similarity, and there is a consensus that this is a valid inference. The reality is, outside your fictitious irrelevant scenario which illuminates nothing, that Native Americans share more ancestry with Native Siberians than either do with Caucasoid Russians. Do I have to show you the PCA again?
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2016
  13. Phill Banned Banned

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    144
    a) One last time: race is defined by shared ancestry. Do you deny that shared ancestry exists?
    b) Not necessary to support thread question.
     
  14. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,888
    You are really hung up on race, aren't you. Maybe you should just chill out a little.
     
  15. Phill Banned Banned

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    144
    I'm perfectly calm thanks. I just find it rather sad how many have been hoodwinked by the long running pseudoscientific disinformation campaign in academia and the media. I honestly find it hard to explain how they swallow such transparent sophistry. Maybe Cochran was right.

     
  16. Phill Banned Banned

    Messages:
    144
    Race does have boundaries and predictive value. As for boundaries non-continuous distributions allow non-arbitrary divisions. An individual will always be closer or more distant to major and minor centroids in genetic space. And the race concept has traditionally allowed for hybrid zones (as does species) from Blumenbach through Darwin, so this is a strawman. And as for predictive validity we can reference Dawkins:

    However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.
    Where is no predictive value established in that text? It appears to be merely asserted. Are people really trying to claim that if I tell you someone "looks Chinese" that contains no predictive information? And that's without even getting to more precise and deeper analyses.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    No, you didn't. You left out almost a third of that cluster, and even doing that you couldn't avoid including Obama's father (probably), most of India including the south, and millions of other people who self-identify as non-white in your IQ surveys.
    No kidding. Try it.
    Obama's father is Caucasoid? People from southern India are Caucasoid? And that's just from your silly little circle, where you tried to get all the white people in and leave all the black and brown and red and yellow out. The actual cluster, based on distance and connection, appears to include all non-Bantu Ethiopians, the Andaman and Sri Lankan Islands and nearby coastal people, and so forth.

    Not your races. They are defined by skin color. There's no other explanation for the way you identify them. Why else would you put the Maasai in the same race as the Mbuti? The Irish in the same race as the Finns? Why else put the Japanese in a different race than the Inuit - or even the Mayans? Compare the "ancestry" map indicated by this standard migration map: https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/ with anyone's attempt to classify race by ancestry and hope to find the US sociological races buried in their muddle somewhere.
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    You are defining "race" by colour.

    And yes, I do deny that "shared ancestry" exists for the simple reason that everyone has mixed ancestry. Your own little pictures that you have posted on this site clearly show that there is no such thing as "shared ancestry".

    Actually, yes it is.

    Now, I have asked you numerous times to provide scientific data to support your contention. You have yet to do so. I have also asked you to provide links to what you are quoting. You have failed to do so.

    And again with claims that are wholly unsupported by science and a quote that is taken out of context (Dawkins also agrees that "race" has no "social value" and he considered it destructive and discriminatory) and you haven't bothered to link to said quote.

    You are going by looks alone, which scientifically speaking, is downright stupid.

    This is your last warning. Failure to a) support your claims with scientific data and b) provide links to what you are quoting, will result in this thread being closed and sent to the cesspool and you will receive an infraction.
     
  19. Phill Banned Banned

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    144
    This is just transparent nonsense. There is nothing more to say.
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    In other words, you are unable to support any of your arguments with actual science.

    Your behaviour and actions in this thread can only be construed as being trolling (failing to support your argument while demanding others provide proof which you not only fail to read, but also fail to acknowledge) and propaganda (pushing for your personal beliefs that are completely unproven and failing to support your argument and refusing to acknowledge all the scientific evidence that clearly shows that you are wrong). You have consistently failed to support your argument, despite repeated requests that you do so. You have consistently refused to link what you are quoting, which by any definition is tantamount to plagiarism.

    Thread closed.
     
  21. Phill Banned Banned

    Messages:
    144
    http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140401/ncomms4584/full/ncomms4584.html

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478293/

     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2016
  22. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Context.. Or lack thereof.. Misrepresentation.. Flaming.. Off topic posting..

    You are the gift that keeps on giving. Notice how what you posted clearly says nothing about race being defined by shared ancestry as you kept arguing and what I was responding to? Funny that.

    If you keep this up, you will face more moderation.
     
  23. Phill Banned Banned

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    144
    No, your were "arguing" or asserting that shared ancestry didn't exist, before locking the thread. Here's the quote.

    What's the point of discussing if your definitions of my words are your own insane nonsense?

    I'd already quoted Darwin defining race by shared ancestry.

    Who cares? I'm clearly on some mis-named garbage website. You are about as scientific as the DPRK is a democratic republic. Keep telling yourself otherwise.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2016
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