And who decided that... blacks? Wait... tell me now that blacks don't exist any more like your buddy iceaura is trying to do. Do you believe that humans are capable of lying and distorting the truth to further their own interests? If not you are either a naive fool or a Christian. Sure, and there's no connection between the two. You could have the genes of a haddock... but look like a horse. It's wonderful what Santa Clause can do if you ask him nicely. Wrong. Racism is the belief that one or more races are MORE EVOLVED than others.
Quite a few racists, now and in the past, lack any conception of evolution. They manage to be racist, all the same.
"Ours is not to reason why ours is but to do or die". It's never been necessary for the white working class to comprehend the reasons for the cultural mores and taboos that exist -which in this case are a memetic parallel of an evolutionary pathway - only to ensure the meme's survival.
Whilst there is no doubt that Darwin is a scientific historical superhero, using a quotation of his in that way is akin to offering a Model T Ford as an example of modern automotive engineering. Darwin may have used the term “race” in the 19th century but modern 21st century genetics has shown that there is no consistent genetic basis to the cultural and geographical concepts of 'race'.
Primitive psycho-physical traits will always persist in certain hominid groups, as evolution is an ongoing process, a ceaseless weeding out of what is inferior and unfit, which itself is determined by the trajectory evolution has taken given an analysis of evidence contained in the hominid fossil record. That pathway is not only the result of the actions of the 'blind watchmaker', but also the inevitable consequence of competition between hominid groups, as intelligence combined with physical health has determined the eventual winners and losers, the conquerors and the subject. The analogy with the Model T is quite apt. Automotive engineering has merely become more sophisticated, the same as our biological sciences have, but the reasons for the existence of the engine remains the same, and liberal science fulfils the same function, albeit in a more devious and oblique way than the sciences of Darwin's era.
And reality's leftwing, "liberal" bias once more drives the vulnerable around the bend and over the cliff. These guys never have much of a clue about science, do they. "The man himself"? Next we will hear from Isaac Newton about astrology, and declare Newtonian physics an astrology addled liberal delusion.
LOL wut And in that case, you would be a horse. Nobody would bother checking your genes, before saddling and riding you. Likewise with race and genetics. Oh man, where to start - first of all, that doesn't conflict with the statement you responded to, there. Second, anybody who thinks that any modern organism is "more evolved" than any other, evidently doesn't understand the basics of evolution. Third, ALL CAPS IS FOR LOUD IDIOTS WITHOUT POINTS.
I thought that was called ethnicity? :shrug: Aaa, good ol' semantics. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! All I can say is when I was looking at different forensic athropology resources they'd routinely exchanges the words "race" and "ancestry". Go back and reread that quote you posted from my link. I must not be a standard U.S. citizen so I can't really comment on a stereotypical system of classification. That's as good of an answer as any. In retrospect I should have stated that statement a little differently. I wasn't trying to imply that all polymorphic phenotypes will disapper over time. I agree, there will always be some semblance of ancestey. I was referring to what Dr. Bruce Wheatley alluded to - the identifiable differences in skeletal remains are becoming less and less distinct over time.
So? It's obvious that the "black" race in the US incorporates dozens of completely different ancestries. If those forensic anthropologists go on to classify Kenyan, Micronesian, and San people as having the same ancestry, they'd be obviously wrong - right? Anyone who tries to classify a person by race in the US "regardless of what their skin may have looked like" is just being silly. What their skin looks like is the basis of racial classification in the US. It's the single, necessary, basic, dominant factor.
"Identifiable differences in skeletal remains" has almost nothing whatsoever to do with "race." People don't have their races assigned by what their skeletal remains would look like. It's done on the basis of (mostly) skin color.
Now that that's settled. How do either of you think future archeologists will categorize our current distinct polymorphic phenotypes? Are they more likely to identify them as a subspecies of common ancestry (like Homo floresiensis is considered today) or do you think they will recognize these distinct phenotypes as being part of the same subspecies as themselves? Obviously we cannot say with certainty what the peoples of the far future will be thinking but, we can all agree that there are distinct differences in our skeletal remains, differences that are becoming less and less distinct over time. I think it's safe to assume that the peoples of the far future will be able to recognize these distinct differences. Don't you? My inquiry revolves around how they might interpret those differences. It seems obvious to me that any civilized person who lived as little as 4,000 years ago believed that what they knew then would be handed down throughout the generations. We now know that this is not necessarily the case. Knowledge gets lost over time. Who's to say this will not happen again?
The distinctions are very minor, compared with the kinds of differences that lead to classification into separate taxa now. Plus, they overlap - if the future researchers have anything like an adequate supply of skeletons, they will see a continuum of variation with few and narrow gaps. There's no telling what their criteria or taxa will be, but they would have to be quite different from our own to register the current geographic subtypes as separate taxa anywhere above the "variety" level.
I beg your pardon but you must have slept through the last census. Its racial classification system was a masterpiece of bureaucratic compromise: a mishmash of skin color, national ancestry, and (IIRC) a little pure whimsy. No one here counts people from India as "black," no matter how dark they might actually be. They're all "Indians." In other words, Darwin hadn't studied DNA because it hadn't been discovered yet. Humans have remarkably little genetic variation compared to other species. This is no doubt largely due to the genetic bottlenecks of Y-Chromosome Adam around 60KYA and Mitochondrial Eve around twice that far back.
And your recognition of its bureaucratic idiocy is based on your own certain experience with the actual US racial classifications. This is a science forum, no? We are not basing our descriptions of reality on the language US government official forms, yes? For starters, the census form (for bureaucratic reasons) has people classifying themselves - actually choosing their race as a matter of preference. You have got to be kidding. Survey photos of people from the tribes of India: http://www.culturopedia.com/tribes/tribes(o-z).html Start with the Andaman and Nicobar archipelagos.
You used the phrase, "the standard US system of classification of people into races." The only standard U.S. system is the one used by the government. No professional, industry or academic organization has established an alternative standard. We encounter the U.S. standard system constantly. Every time you apply for a job, a loan or admission to a school, for example, you are given the same standard list of racial classifications and told to choose one. I'm not arguing about their appearance. I'm telling you what we Americans call them. You don't have to tell me what Indians look like, half of the members of my project team are from India.
? Joke? The government is forbidden by the Constitution to use the US sociological classes called "races" for much of anything. It certainly does not establish them - they are cultural facts, like language or diet. Then you are not talking about their race, in the US. Who is "we"? Nobody from the US I've ever met would classify a tourist from some of those Indian peoples, walking down the street of any US city I've ever been in, as anything other than "black". They are in fact members of the "black" race, in the US, universally and immediately, as soon as they are seen, without qualification.
You keep posting this, but it is not true. All species that have a Y-chromosome will have, in their extant population, a "Y-chromosome Adam" regardless of whether the population went through a "genetic bottleneck". Likewise, all species that have mitochondria and utilize sexual fusion of sperm and egg will have a "mitchondrial-Eve" for their extant population regardless of whether the population went through a "genetic bottleneck". Genetic bottlenecks refer to the population as a whole being greatly reduced in numbers, then expanded back again in numbers, over time. That "bottleneck" in the species' population numbers will lead to a reduction in genetic diversity (i.e. the numerous mutations present in each individual, whether deleterious, positive, or neutral) as numerous mutations are deleted from the gene-pool. It is believed that the human species went through a genetic bottleneck(s), but that is not associated with Y-Adam or m-Eve.
