Obama is not black

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by w1z4rd, Nov 3, 2008.

  1. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    And what has divide and rule got to do with the European, Arab and Asian explorers and scientists who visited Africa and recorded their observations and thoughts on the people they found there? It must be quite embarrassing for white working class liberals like yourself to read Darwin's descriptions of muscular and athletic African people and then find they dominate world athletics.

    Oh... err... ahem. Darwin.... what a racist.

    Your divide and rule argument actually works against you, since you posit economic manipulation as the source of the race 'myth', when in actual fact it's the agenda of contemporary capitalism and Western nations to deny racial differences in the cause of economic progress. In that sense your views sit soundly with those of modern colonialists.

    Oh please... don't bother. That chav brain of yours is barely sentient.

    You can certainly compare humans to other species, by looking at the ratio of jaw size to brain size. You will not find one specie with a larger jaw to brain ratio than homo sapiens. Within that specie European and Asian humans have the largest.

    In fact, if you ordered humanity according to this ratio, you would end up with exactly the same categories that we have for skin color. Proving that race is more than skin deep.

    A study carried out by Japanese scientist Tsunehiko Hanihara can be found here.

    (Incidentally, you could do the same for bone density and muscle to fat ratio)


    Why are you practicing divide and rule on nature by using terms like 'leopard' and 'wolf'?

    We shall have to invent a whole new term to describe your prejudice against four-legged furry animals.

    Self-hater!
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2008
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  3. CutsieMarie89 Zen Registered Senior Member

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    Yes I was one of those black kids that hung out with white kids (well kids who weren't black, not all of my friends were/are white). I haven't rejected Africa, I've studied many of the different countries in Africa because I wanted to know more about where I came from. And the more I studied the more I felt like there were some similarities between the some of the African cultures and "African Americans", but for the most part it just didn't feel like a true connection. The cultures have diverged. I currently live in the "ghetto" and spend my time around a lot of black and Mexican people. At first I didn't feel like I belonged, but after a while I fit in just fine and now for the first time in my life I don't feel like the odd one out. Some people do truly feel a cultural connection to "Mother Africa" and that's great to be a part of a heritage like that, but I just didn't feel that way. Embracing the black culture here in America, which is something I got to do when I left for college has been a wonderful experience for me. Besides Africans don't really care for black people nor do they even really consider black people to be anything like them. At least the Africans I've met personally, I can't speak for all Africans of course.
     
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  5. sniffy Banned Banned

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    Darwin on 'race' and slavery.

    "I must here commemorate what happened for the first time during our nearly fiveeyears' wandering, namely, having met with a want of politeness. I was refused in a sullen manner at two different houses, and obtained with difficulty from a third, permission to pass through their gardens to an uncultivated hill, for the purpose of viewing the country. I feel glad that this happened in the land of the Brazilians, for I bear them no good will - a land also of slavery, and therefore of moral debasement...On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil, I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye. These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has always been said, that slaves are better treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I have seen at Rio de Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a kind-hearted man was on the point of separating forever the men, women, and little children of a large number of families who had long lived together. I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; nor would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the negro as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil. Such people have generally visited at the houses of the upper classes, where the domestic slaves are usually well treated; and they have not, like myself, lived amongst the lower classes. Such inquirers will ask slaves about their condition; they forget that the slave must indeed be dull, who does not calculate on the chance of his answer reaching his master's ears.

    It is argued that self-interest will prevent excessive cruelty; as if self-interest protected our domestic animals, which are far less likely than degraded slaves, to stir up the rage of their savage masters. It is an argument long since protested against with noble feeling, and strikingly exemplified, by the ever-illustrious Humboldt. It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of you wife and your little children - those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own - being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin."

    Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), Chapter XXI

    By all means DT call me a 'chav', 'self-hater' and 'liberal' (as if the latter should be taken as an insult). Such attempted condescension exposes your true origins.

    Cruel human.
     
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  7. sniffy Banned Banned

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    Well what do you expect from the brain of a waitress?


    'Proving' seems to a word with a different interpretation to mine. A quote from the paper you linked to:

    "It is worth noting that this study is not a test of competing models of modern human origins. The proper conclusion is, therefore, that the
    data on recent craniofacial variation in worldwide populations are compatible with not only a multiregional interpretation but also a single-origin interpretation."
    Tsunehiko Hanihara

    You may call that 'proving' I call it inconclusive. Oh and BTW 'race' is not mentioned in the paper. 'Race' isn't a scientific word you see.


    Territorialism exhibited by a large number of species and sub species. Humans are only animals after all. Albeit quite clever and manipulative ones.
     
  8. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    Now what are you trying to say?

    That Darwin wasn't a racist?

    That since he didn't support slavery, he didn't believe races existed?

    I would suggest you are wrong if that is the case.



    Oh poor sniffy, such a childish, naive mind.

    Look, everyone's the same and the world's a wonderful place, with pink fluffy clouds and real cuddly teddy bears. They won't tear you to pieces like the 'real' ones.
     
  9. sniffy Banned Banned

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  10. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    Not a lot.

    You delivered.


    I completely agree.

    Since we weren't discussing human origins what was your point?


    On the question of the usefulness of genetics in a race debate what is more relevant to the diner, the whole meal or its molecular constituents? Both biscuits and sausages contain salt, but you are unlikely to dip a sausage in your tea, or cover your biscuit in gravy, are you?

    This is overall an issue of quality and taste, one which must be approached holistically rather than in reductio.


    I can assure you that any deception being practiced here is all yours. I've just provided you with a scientific study supporting my position which you have either studiously ignored or are unable to comprehend. Considering you responded concerning a question regarding human origins I suggest it is the latter.
     
  11. sniffy Banned Banned

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    We were discussing the origins of 'race'. You implied that 'race' was something other than a socio/political construct created to benefit the capitalist system of resource exploitation. In doing so you implied that 'race' was somehow connected to human origins (ie that the so called 'races' have different origins) and to intelligence and skull shape and size. You then coughed up a study which you claimed supported your view. I pointed out that it did not.


    Now then here is your homework for today:

    Gene flow between continents
    Gene flow is the exchange of genes from one population to another. Gene flow has the effect of reducing the genetic distance between two populations. Since genes are exchanged between neighboring populations many traits are distributed along clines. The boundaries of the major continents may in some cases restrict gene flow, allowing for genetic differentiation.

    However many of the political divisions of today are not naturally occurring and in the past have not restricted gene flow. Europe and Asia are in fact the single continent of Eurasia. This would explain the relatively small genetic distance of 9.7% as calculated by Cavalli-Sforza.

    North Africa is sometimes included as part of Eurasia. Northeast Africa is adjacent to Saudi Arabia and thus Africans have a long history of interaction with the middle east. Populations in the horn of Africa have significant Arab admixture. African mitochondrial DNA haplotypes are also frequent in the Middle east. Across the Sahara from Sudan to Senegal interactions between blacks and Arabs have resulted in significant gene exchange between the populations. In North Africa, in a study by Rando et al. 1998, levels of sub-Saharan mtDNA (excluding L3 lineage, which may be of ancient introduction and so remains ambiguous) ran from 2% in Moroccan Berbers, 9% in Algerian Berbers and in non-Berber Moroccans to 40% in Saharans and Mauritanians, and 56% in Tuareg[13]. During the 8th century the Moors from North Africa conquered the Iberian peninsula, in the process they would have brought African admixture to Europe. This is clinically distributed across Europe from southwest to North east with Northern Europe showing no presence. On the other hand, Northern Europe, especially some parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic states have the highest Asian lineage-related genetic markers in Europe, represented mainly by haplogroup N.[1].

    Africa is the most genetically divergent continent. However, the most closely related population to Africa based on genetic distance is Europe at 16.6%. This may be counterintuitive based on different skin colors. Independent evolution on the different continents would result in equal genetic distances between Africa and the other continents. However, this low figure of 16.6(relative to Australia 24.7, and America 22.6%) indicates that there has been substantial interaction and exchange of genes between Africa and Europe. Cavalli-Sforza estimates that Europeans are mixed race population, one third African and two thirds Asian.[5][7]

    Joseph Greenberg classified American languages into three large families. He proposed that these families represent three separate migrations that filled the Americas in the order they arrived. These separate migrations across the Bering strait would have continued to bring new genes from Asia thus reducing the genetic distance between Asia and America.

    Australasia is largely considered to be the most isolated continent. It was occupied at least 40,000 years ago when sea levels were much lower and the shortest distance between Indonesia and Australia was a 90 km sea voyage. 20,000 years ago at the end of the last Glacial Maximum, sea levels rose due to melting ice sheets flooding much of Australia's coastline and increasing its geographic isolation from Asia. Tasmania was cut off from Australia 10,000 years ago making it the most isolated region. These obstacles significantly restricted gene flow to indigenous Australasians. Second to Africa, Australasia is the most genetically divergent continent by genetic distance; however evidence suggests that even with Australasia gene flow has been taking place. Fossils of the Dingo in Australia have been dated to only 3500 years ago indicating that it was recently introduced. The dingo is native to India. Some Y chromosomal studies indicate a recent influx of y chromosomes from the Indian subcontinent.[14] More recently fisherman from Makassar in Indonesia regularly made contact with Indigenous Australians from possibly as early as 1000 CE.

    Recent admixture
    Main article: Miscegenation#Genetic studies of racial admixture
    Genetic techniques have been used to study racial admixture in America.


    Defining race
    The 0.1% genetic difference that differentiates any two random humans is still the subject of much debate. The discovery that only 8% of this difference separates the major races led some scientists to proclaim that race is biologically meaningless. They argue that since genetic distance increases in a continuous manner any threshold or definitions would be arbitrary. Any two neighboring villages or towns will show some genetic differentiation from each other and thus could be defined as a race. Thus any attempt to classify races would be imposing an artificial discontinuity on what is otherwise a naturally occurring continuous phenomenon.

    However, other scientists disagree by claiming that the assertion that race is biologically meaningless is politically motivated and that genetic differences are significant. Neil Risch states that numerous studies over past decades have documented biological differences among the races with regard to susceptibility and natural history of a chronic disease, though acknowledges that these differences do not constitute any major subdivisions of the human species: '...These conclusions seem consistent with the claim that "there is no biological basis for 'race'" and that "the myth of major genetic differences across 'races' is nonetheless worth dismissing with genetic evidence". Of course, the use of the term "major" leaves the door open for possible differences but a priori limits any potential significance of such differences.' Effectively Neil Risch is attempting to redefine "race" for human populations to represent that small proportion of variation that is known to vary between continental populations. It is well established, that the level of differentiation between the continental human groups, as measured by the statistic FST is about 0.06-0.1 (6-10%), with about 5-10% of variation at the population level (that is between different populations occupying the same continent) and about 75-85% of variation within populations.(Risch et al., 2002; Templeton, 1998; Ossorio and Duster, 2005; Lewontin, 2005). Tempeton (1998) states that in biology a level of 0.25-0.3 (20-30%) of differentiation normally accepted in biological literature for a population to be considered a race or subspecies.

    "A standard criterion for a subspecies or race in the nonhuman literature under the traditional definition of a subspecies as a geographically circumbscribed, sharply differentiated population is to have FST values of at least 0.25 to 0.3 (Smith et al. 1997). Hence as judged by the criterion in the nonhuman literature, the human FST value is too small to have taxonomic significance under the traditional subspecies definition."(Templeton, 1998)

    Indeed Neil Risch himself avoids defining race, when asked to respond to the comment "Genome variation research does not support the existence of human races.” he replied

    What is your definition of races? If you define it a certain way, maybe that's a valid statement. There is obviously still disagreement....Scientists always disagree! A lot of the problem is terminology. I'm not even sure what race means, people use it in many different ways.(Gitschier, 2005)

    Racial classification is a modern phenomenon dating back to the 15th century when Portuguese and Spanish sailors encountered sub-saharan Africans and referred to them as Negro (the color black). Literature from earlier Roman and Greek eras is noticeably lacking in racial references. Instead people were often described by their tribal origin or by their status as freemen or slaves.

    Research published in July 2008 concludes that there is no race. A Scientific American article entitled "Traces of a Distant Past" by Gary Stix has the most interesting quote:

    Genetic literacy will let a term like "Asian" or "Chinese" be replaced by more subtle classifications based on the differences in ancestral genetic makeup found in recent genome-wide scans, such as the distinction between China's southern and northern Han groups. "There is no race."Quintana-Murci says

    Ouch.

    But still......


    Confusions About Human Races
    By R.C. Lewontin
    Published on: Jun 07, 2006
    R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University, has written a number of books and articles on evolution and human variation, including Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA and The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment

    Over the last thirty five years a major change has taken place in our biological understanding of the concept of human “race,” largely as a consequence of an immense increase in our knowledge of human genetics. As a biological rather than a social construct, “race” has ceased to be seen as a fundamental reality characterizing the human species. Nevertheless, there appear from time to time claims that racial categories represent not arbitrary socially and historically defined groups but objective biological divisions based on genetic differences. The most recent widely noticed rebirth of such claims is an essay by Armand Marie Leroi on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times (March 14, 2005), an essay that illustrates both the classical confusions about the reality of racial categories and the more recent erroneous conclusions about the relevance of such racial identifications for medical practice.

    There are four facts about human variation upon which there is universal agreement. First, the human species as a whole has immense genetic variation from individual to individual. Any two unrelated human beings differ by about 3 million distinct DNA variants.

    Second, by far the largest amount of that variation, about 85%, is among individuals within local national or linguistic populations, within the French, within the Kikuyu, within the Japanese. There is diversity from population to population in how much genetic variation each contains, depending upon how much immigration into the population has occurred from a variety of other groups and also on the size of the population. The United States, with a very large population whose ancestors came from all over the earth including the original inhabitants of the New World, is genetically very variable whereas small populations of local Amazonian tribes are less genetically variable, although they are by no means genetically uniform. Despite the differences in amount of genetic variation within local populations, the finding that on the average 85% of all human genetic variation is within local populations has been a remarkably consistent result of independent studies carried out over twenty-five years using data from both proteins and DNA.

    Of the remaining 15% of human variation, between a quarter and a half is between local populations within classically defined human “races,” between the French and the Ukrainians, between the Kikuyu and the Ewe, between the Japanese and the Koreans. The remaining variation, about 6% to 10% of the total human variation is between the classically defined geographical races that we think of in an everyday sense as identified by skin color, hair form, and nose shape. This imprecision in assigning the proportion of variation assigned to differences among population within ”races” as compared to variation among “races,” arises precisely because there is no objective way to assign the various human populations to clear-cut races. Into which “race” do the Hindi and Urdu speakers of the Indian sub-continent fall? Should they be grouped with Europeans or with Asians or should a separate race be assigned to them? Are the Lapps of Finland and the Hazari of Afghanistan really Europeans or Asians? What about Indonesians and Melanesians? Different biologists have made different assignments and the number of “races” assigned by anthropologists and geneticists has varied from 3 to 30.

    Third, a small number of genetic traits, such as skin color, hair form, nose shape (traits for which the genes have not actually been identified) and a relatively few proteins like the Rh blood type, vary together so that many populations with very dark skin color will also have dark tightly curled hair, broad noses and a high frequency of the Rh blood type R0. Those who, like Leroi, argue for the objective reality of racial divisions claim that when such covariation is taken into account, clear-cut racial divisions will appear and that these divisions will correspond largely to the classical division of the world into Whites, Blacks, Yellows, Reds and Browns. It is indeed possible to combine the information from covarying traits into weighted averages that take account of the traits' covariation (technically known as "principal components" of variation). When this has been done, however, the results have not borne out the claims for racial divisions. The geographical maps of principal component values constructed by Cavalli, Menozzi and Piazza in their famous The History and Geography of Human Genes show continuous variation over the whole world with no sharp boundaries and with no greater similarity occurring between Western and Eastern Europeans than between Europeans and Africans! Thus, the classically defined races do not appear from an unprejudiced description of human variation. Only the Australian Aborigines appear as a unique group.

    A clustering of populations that does correspond to classical continental "races" can be acheived by using a special class of non-functional DNA, microsatellites. By selecting among microsatellites, it is possible to find a set that will cluster together African populations, European populations, and Asian populations, etc. These selected microsatellite DNA markers are not typical of genes, however, but have been chosen precisely because they are "maximally informative" about group differences. Thus, they tell us what we already knew about the differences between populations of the classical "races" from skin color, face shape, and hair form. They have the added advantage of allowing us to make good estimates of the amount of intermixture that has occurred between populations as a result of migrations and conquests.

    The every-day socially defined geographical races do identify groups of populations that are somewhat more closely similar to each other genetically. Most important from the standpoint of the biological meaning of these racial categories, however, most human genetic variation does not show such "race" clustering. For the vast majority of human genetic variations, classical racial categories as defined by a combination of geography, skin color, nose and hair shape, an occasional blood type or selected microsatellites make no useful prediction of genetic differences. This failure of the clustering of local populations into biologically meaningful "races" based on a few clear genetic differences is not confined to the human species. Zoologists long ago gave up the category of "race" for dividing up groups of animal populations within a species, because so many of these races turned out to be based on only one or two genes so that two animals born in the same litter could belong to different "races."

    In his article, Leroi is inconsistent and shifting in his notion of race. Sometimes it corresponds to the classical social definitions of major races, but elsewhere he makes “race” coincident with a small local group such as the Negritos or Inuit. In this shifting concept of “race” he goes back to the varying use of the term in the 19th century. Then people spoke of the “Scots race,” “the Irish race” and the “race of Englishmen.” Indeed “race” could stand for a family group defined by male inheritance, as in the description of the last male in a family line as “the last of his race.” This inconsistent usage arises from the fact that there is no clear criterion of how much difference between groups of genetically related individuals should correspond to the category “race.” If it had turned out that groups of related populations were clearly different in the great majority of their genes from other groups, then racial categories would be clear and unambiguous and they would have great predictive power for as yet unstudied characters. But that is not the way it has turned out, at least for the human species.

    The fourth and last fact about genetic differences between groups is that these differences are in the process of breaking down because of the very large amount of migration and intergroup mating that was always true episodically in the history of the human species but is now more widespread than ever. The result is that individuals identified by themselves or others as belonging to one “race,” based on the small number of visible characters used in classical race definitions, are likely to have ancestry that is a mixture of these groups, a fact that has considerable significance for the medical uses of race identification.

    A common claim, repeated by Leroi, is that racial categories are of considerable medical use, especially in diagnostic testing because some genetic disorders are very common in ancestral racial populations. For example sickle cell anemia is common among West Africans, who were brought as slaves to the New World, and Tay-Sachs disease is common among Ashkenazi Jews. So, it is argued, racial information can be a useful diagnostic indicator. Certainly classical “race” contains some medically relevant information in some cases, as for example “white” as opposed to “African American” if the contrast is between Finland and West Africa, but not if it is a contrast between a “white” Mediterranean and an “Asian” Indian. There is a confusion here between race and ancestry. Sickle cell anemia is in high frequency not only in West Africans but also in some “white” Middle Eastern and Indian populations. Moreover, a person with, say, one African great-grandparent, but who is identified by herself and others as “white” has a one in eight chance of inheriting a sickle-cell mutation carried by that ancestor. There are, in addition, a number of other simply inherited hemoglobin abnormalities, the thalassemias, that are in high frequency in some places in the Mediterranean (Sardinia), Arabia and southeast Asia. The highest frequency known for a thalassemia (80%) is in Nepal, but it is rare in most of Asia. The categorization of individuals simply as “white” or “Afro-American” or “Asian” will result in a failure to test for such abnormal hemoglobins because these abnormalities do not characterize the identified “race” of the patient. Even group identities below the level of the conventional races are misleading. Two of my incontrovertibly WASP grandchildren have a single Ashenazi Jewish great-grandparent and so have a one in eight chance of inheriting a Tay-Sachs abnormality carried by that ancestor. For purposes of medical testing we do not want to know whether a person is “Hispanic” but rather whether that person’s family came from a Caribbean country such as Cuba, that had a large influx of West African slaves, or one in which there was a great deal of intermixture with native American tribes as in Chile and Mexico, or one in which there was only a negligible population of non-Europeans. Racial identification simply does not do the work needed. What we ought to ask on medical questionnaires is not racial identification, but ancestry. “Do you know of any ancestors who were (Ashkenazi Jews, or from West Africa, from certain regions of the Mediterranean, from Japan)?” Once again, racial categorization is a bad predictor of biology.

    There has been an interesting dialectic between the notion of human races and the use of race as a general biological category. Historically, the concept of race was imported into biology, and not only the biology of the human species, from social practice. The consciousness that human beings come in distinct varieties led, in the history of biology, to the construction of “race” as a subgrouping within species. For a long time the category “race” was a standard taxonomic level. But the use of “race” in a general biological context then reinforced its application to humans. After all, lots of animal and plant species are divided into races, so why not Homo sapiens? Yet the classification of animal and plant species into named races was at all times an ill-defined and idiosyncratic practice. There was no clear criterion of what constituted a race of animals or plants that could be applied over species in general. The growing realization in the middle of the twentieth century that most species had some genetic differentiation from local population to local population led finally to the abandonment in biology of any hope that a uniform criterion of race could be constructed. Yet biologists were loathe to abandon the idea of race entirely. In an attempt to hold on to the concept while make it objective and generalizable, Th. Dobzhansky, the leading biologist in the study of the genetics of natural populations, introduced the “geographical race,” which he defined as any population that differed genetically in any way from any other population of the species. But as genetics developed and it became possible to characterize the genetic differences between individuals and populations it became apparent, that every population of every species in fact differs genetically to some degree from every other population. Thus, every population is a separate “geographic race” and it was realized that nothing was added by the racial category. The consequence of this realization was the abandonment of “race” as a biological category during the last quarter of the twentieth century, an abandonment that spread into anthropology and human biology. However, that abandonment was never complete in the case of the human species. There has been a constant pressure from social and political practice and the coincidence of racial, cultural and social class divisions reinforcing the social reality of race, to maintain “race” as a human classification. If it were admitted that the category of “race” is a purely social construct, however, it would have a weakened legitimacy. Thus, there have been repeated attempts to reassert the objective biological reality of human racial categories despite the evidence to the contrary.

    http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2008
  12. sniffy Banned Banned

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    Yeah those dummies!
     
  13. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    I claimed Europeans exhibited the least prognathism. The table below - a summary of Hanihara's findings available in the link I provided - clearly supports that. To the far right are those populations with the prominent protruding jaw, to the far left those with the least, if any.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!




    And don't bother cutting and pasting large slabs of text because your argument has run out of steam, I'm not going to wade through it. It's typical that you arrogantly try to slide out of an argument you are clearly losing through condescension and obfuscation.

    Finally, I cannot think of anything more racist than suggesting black people do not exist. As a white liberal you clearly feel you have the right to do this.
     
  14. sniffy Banned Banned

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    Well you did ask for scientific articles and links in support of my assertion that 'race' is a socio/political invention.

    Sorry if the pieces I posted were too much for you to take in at once so just try this little bit of it:

    "......Thus, every population is a separate “geographic race” and it was realized that nothing was added by the racial category. The consequence of this realization was the abandonment of “race” as a biological category during the last quarter of the twentieth century, an abandonment that spread into anthropology and human biology. However, that abandonment was never complete in the case of the human species. There has been a constant pressure from social and political practice and the coincidence of racial, cultural and social class divisions reinforcing the social reality of race, to maintain “race” as a human classification. If it were admitted that the category of “race” is a purely social construct, however, it would have a weakened legitimacy. Thus, there have been repeated attempts to reassert the objective biological reality of human racial categories despite the evidence to the contrary."

    Well if you'd like to point out exactly where I deny that people with black skin exist....What I actually say, supported by scientific articles and their links, is that 'black' as a 'race' or indeed 'white' as a race does not exist as anything other than a socio/political entity. Skin tone is an evolutionary response to geography and climate as are your much vaunted cranial differences.

    In 200 000 years or so the ancestors of those with darker skins who migrated north between 1900 and 2000 will most likely be 'white' skinned and those with lighter skinned ancestors who migrated south at about the same time will be 'black' skinned.

    Now if you have any genuine evidence that contradicts my view as a human being I'd like to see it.
     
  15. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    That isn't what you said.

    I quote:


    What you have overlooked in your eagerness to appear intelligent is that modern capitalism denies the existence of race. It does this to prevent conflict amongst the working class to ensure productivity and expand the global market place. You are, therefore, only an agent acting in the interests of a system you originally sought to vilify. Hoist on your own petard you are now a hypocrite and racist by your own ridiculous argument.


    It sounds like some left-wing sociologist's attempt at writing history. It's irrelevant and boring.

    You can start by explaining why primates have different colored skin under their fur.
     
  16. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

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    He's socially black, hes genetically whatever his two parents were.
    Obama helps to combat the social stigma of blackness, thanks to Obama being socially black is no longer considered a disease.

    This however does not change the fact that an individual who is socially black cannot make mistakes and must be twice as good as a socially white person in the same situation. The difference between being white and black is that whites can afford to make mistakes while blacks cannot make any mistakes.

    If you are black, there is no room for error, you have to be black and perfect.
    Perfect like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Bill Cosby, flawless, the best. Otherwise you'll be nothing, thats the lesson we learn from Obama.

    As far as Obama going to Harvard, he is a legacy, both his parents went to Harvard. I give Obama credit for taking full advantage of his opportunity, but not everybody will be given that kind of opportunity. A lot of it has to do with timing, and which family you are born into.
     
  17. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,023
    It's not about acting white, it's about acting proper. Speak proper english, act English, not so much white. Remember Kerry was white and he was acting too French.
     
  18. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,023
    Theres only really two true races in society that I think matter. Rich and poor. The goal of liberal America is to turn race into class. If you don't want to be the next "black" you better be rich.
     
  19. TimeTraveler Immortalist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,023

    This depends a lot on the class of the community. If you are rich, often you'll find that people care less and less what your race is and more and more what your financial status is. What I'm saying is, myself for example, I couldn't care less what race you are, but your financial status would become the new divide. If you are for example a very rich black person, any reasonable logical human should give more weight to your financial status than to your race. The humans who put race first are religious nutcases in my opinion.

    Class comes before race in my book. I wouldn't care what race a woman is, but if she's poor as hell then I would care because I don't want to raise kids in a ghetto somewhere in poverty. So if I can be sure that the offspring I produce with that person would be well protected, thats basically all I'd care about and thats logical, thats reason, thats simply choosing the strongest available mate. The people who are racists are idiots who will doom themselves to generations of poverty because eventually they'll run out of strong mates.

    Just like those racist idiots who hate the jews so they don't date jewish people, because jews aren't "aryan" or whatever. This line of thought isnt reasonable because all that matters is whether or not that individual jewish person comes from a successful/strong family or not. Race has nothing to do with whether or not a bloodline survives, financial status, class, and social status have more to do with survival than race.

    In fact, I'd say racists are the ones who will be in the front lines of every war, because they'll want to die for their race, while the smartest people will simply profit from their idiocy, and grow stronger. And in capitalist society stronger = richer. If anyone wants to be a race warrior and die for their race, thats fine. There will be plenty of wars to give them the opportunity to do just that.

    I'm focused only on my own survival. I'm not going to die for a concept invented in Hitlers brain or anyone elses brain unless that concept enhances my chances of survival or quality of life. Hitlers concept of race is a complete scam that reduces quality of life for everyone involved, including the blood Aryans who think that they'll be happy when every aspect of their life is governed by some "boss" and where all individuality is removed.

    Racism only benefits rich blonde blue eyed Aryans, if you are poor, racism is just keeping you poor. Now if you are rich and Aryan like say Donald Trump and Paris Hilton, then at least you can say racism may have helped you, but even then can we say these people would be happy if all the other races were removed and some fascist government boss was always telling them what to do and how to act? I'd think they'd be miserable. Have any of you actually seriously thought about how the world would be if Hitler had got his wish? If you didn't like 8 years of Bush, how would you like 20-40 years of Hitler?
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2008
  20. Mr. Hamtastic whackawhackado! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,492
    DeepThought-Your snide insults have really taken alot from your side of the debate. Arrogance is not a sign of intelligence, more often it shows the lack thereof. It is interesting that you suggest that Capitalist consumerism does not define race, then comment on the position of the working class. Socialism likes to seperate people into classes to better assign them their "place" within society. Perhaps that is what you are familiar with.

    Also, you seem to be a "one-trick pony". How many times are you going to refer to a document as evidence of your position that clearly states that it isn't definitive? Perhaps the language held within it, and Darwin, is above your capability to comprehend? Would it help if I explained to you what the points being made are?

    In conclusion, careful attention to what you read prior to typing responses would help you. Fewer insults as well, for insults are what define your own weakness of position.
     
  21. sniffy Banned Banned

    Messages:
    2,945
    Perhaps modern capitalism (as you have now added an extra adjective into the mix) is responding to increasing evidence based on multi-disciplinary scientific research that humans races do not exist?

    But if you don't believe me I will allow more intelligent types to speak for me. I've emboldened two parts of the text because you've already indicated that you find large tracts difficult and boring. So lets look again at what scientists think about modern humans and 'race' shall we:


    What is genetic anthropology?

    Genetic anthropology is an emerging discipline that combines DNA and physical evidence to reveal the history of ancient human migration. It seeks to answer the questions, "Where did we come from, and how did we get here?"

    DNA studies indicate that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who lived in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. These were not the only humans who lived in these eras, and the human genome still contains many genetic traits of their contemporaries. Humanity's most recent common ancestors are identifiable because their lineages have survived by chance in the special pieces of DNA that are passed down the gender lines nearly unaltered from one generation to the next. These ancestors are part of a growing body of fossil and DNA evidence indicating that modern humans arose in sub-Saharan Africa and began migrating, starting about 65,000 years ago, to populate first southern Asia, China, Java, and later Europe. Each of us living today has DNA that contains the story of our ancient ancestors' journeys.


    The Story of Human Migration Also is Told in the DNA of Parasites and Pets.

    Recent studies of bacteria called Streptococcus mutans, which cause tooth decay, reveal that distinct lineages of the bacteria exist in different geographic regions of the world. The geographical distribution of these lineages reflects the pattern of human migration from the ancestral homeland in Africa. S. mutans is transmitted almost entirely from human mother to child during birth, resulting in the preservation of its lineages over thousands of years. S. mutans is only one of many types of human parasites whose DNA lineages follow the pattern of human migration.

    The correlation with human migration is present but less distinct for pets.

    Studies of domestic cats’ mtDNA reveal that they share a most-recent common ancestor who lived in the Middle East about 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. Wild cats, motivated by the desire to get mice and other food from humanity’s first farmers, seem to have domesticated themselves about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Genetic markers in house cats’ mtDNA reveal that the cats followed the same migratory patterns as early human farmers.


    Will genetic anthropology establish scientific criteria for race or ethnicity?

    DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other. Indeed, it has been proven that there is more genetic variation within races than exists between them.

    http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/humanmigration.shtml#2

    So if 'race' isn't in our ancestral biology where is it? Who does it serve to have human divisions based on notions such as race and class?

    http://http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp60146.pdf

    Two extracts for those who enjoy reading:

    Origins of the Concept of Race

    Whence emerged the concept of “race”?
    The concept of race as a classification scheme representing allegedly natural “types” distinguishable on the basis of clear visual attributes such as skin or eye color, hair texture, and certain facial and bodily features was initially introduced in the 17th century (Schiebinger, 1993). However, it took these ideas almost a century to attract the attention of scientific “authorities.” According to Gould (1994), Linneaus (in 1758) first proposed four races: Americanus, Europaeus, Asiaticus, and Afer, or African. He also alluded to two
    other categories that did not prove as useful for social purposes as the other categories: wild boys (feral children) discovered in the forests and monsters, and hairy men with long tails who emerged from tales of travelers. Blumenbach
    (1775/1969), building on the work of Linneaus, first proposed a grouping of “races,” namely, Caucasians, Mongolians, Ethiopians, and Malays. This early history was no more scientific than the later history was to be. That is, race started out as a not so subtle way of socially classifying and, ultimately, stratifying people hierarchically, as better or worse. For example, Linneaus viewed the White as sanguine and muscular and the Black as phlegmatic and
    relaxed.



    So definitions of 'race' emerged at the same time as capitalism. Well I'll be!!


    Social Versus Biological Definitions of Race

    When biological and behavioral markers of socially defined races are investigated, studies primarily or even exclusively rely on participants’ self-reporting of socially defined racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. Many researchers use social labels such as Asian American, African American,
    Chinese, or Hispanic, implicitly ignoring the fact that these labels generalize across substantial amounts of cultural, linguistic, and biological diversity (Cooper et al., 2000). For example, “Hispanic” includes diverse populations from areas such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Argentina, and, of course, Spain.
    ......
    Thus, because most medical and psychological research on racial differences is based on self-defined racial or ethnic categories and there is substantial evidence questioning the accuracy of these self-classifications, the validity of racial and ethnic differences as commonly investigated is questionable. People will probably always label themselves and others, regardless of what scientists find. The problem is not the use of social labeling per se, but rather the confusion of it with biological labeling. And it is especially problematic when scientists contribute to this confusion by using social labels in a way that suggests they are somehow biological.
     
  22. Mr. Hamtastic whackawhackado! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,492
    That's what I call being Kadarked.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  23. DeepThought Banned Banned

    Messages:
    1,461

    Of course, during the times of slavery capitalists we're all evil and wrong about everything, now they're good and right about everything. It's as if gravity suddenly up'd and then vanished.

    Or is it that you're just a typical Western consumer, to use to being fed n' fattened by the system and frightened of rocking the boat? You're going to have quite a job convincing me now that had you been alive during the times of slavery you'd have objected to the institution.



    This whole passage is wonderful marketing blurb. MtDNA Eve is a Western marketing directors wet dream, a theory which sets the prefect multi-racial back drop for the horrifying scenes you can witness at shopping malls in the west, as white trash shoppers and their mutt children greedily compete for all the cheap and tacky crap on display. How pathetically manipulated they all appear under the stained adverts featuring mixed-race models. But they think they're really it don't they?

    They're the kind of sickeningly self-righteous, tasteless and intellectually impoverished whites who think they're doing black people a favor by breeding with them. They can't even speak or spell properly, but they know how badly blacks need them. Even though you've got over the grammar hang ups sniffy, that pretty much sums you up doesn't it? How long before your mutts due?

    If you bothered to do any research into the mtDNA experiment, you'll know that it's only a story hung upon an exercise in logic, one without a shred of hard organic evidence. Or did you really think they'd found the body of 'mtDNA Eve'? How would they know if they had? Hint: they wouldn't The whole 'experiment' is just a computer simulation driven by some half-arsed ideas about applying formal logic to biology.

    Go and read up on it before you attempt to insult my intelligence again.

    Ahh...an animal version of mtDNA Eve.

    I must go out and buy myself some mongrel breed of cat or dog, one that's quite expensive at the moment but fashionable amongst the trailer park trash and half-breed celebs.



    You have the habit of posting historical commentaries as if they are criticism. This is all very interesting, but it's sending me to sleep.


    Does this include the prognathism already proven in global studies? Or the differences in bone density or muscle to fat ratio? Or the differences in gestation periods and muscle growth? Or the differences in skeletal build? Or the different developmental rates in learning to walk? Or the differencs in I.Q?

    Why do black children spend less time in the womb, but emerge more physically developed?

    Go on sniffy, have a go at that one. While your at it you can take a stab at my previous question, one which you have wisely avoided since it requires you to come up with your own ideas rather than referring to your handbook for wannabe liberal academics.

    Why do primates have different colored skin under their fur? Remember they live in canopied jungles and forests, and are covered in a thick layer of hair.
     

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