Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 18

Plato?
Rikurzhen, I question your adding "Platonic" to modify essentialism. Certainly Plato offered an essentialist theory -- but so did others. Aristotle's ontology is essentialist but based on a very different epistemology than Plato's. There are many different kinds of essentialisms and I do not see why we need to modify the term (I either do not understand or do not agree with the reasons you suggest above). If you had some document in which Linneaus actually appealed to Plato, you will have convinced me. But how do you know he wasn't essentialist in an Aristotelian or in some other way? Slrubenstein 20:52, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the problem I had, and I think the solution is to offer both terms to describe the essentialist POV. What exactly the "essentialists" meant by race is not 100% clear to me, but Platonic essentialism seems to be a good example of what they might have thought; although I agree with you that it may be too narrow. I saw the need for some kind of qualification to distinguish between immanent realism (from the late 20th century) versus transcendental realism (Platonic) about universals; because just saying essentialist is too broad a description. For example, I ca n imagine a contemporary (e.g., lineage) description of races as natural kinds, and those kinds have "essential" properties in the immanent realism sense. So what we need is something more precise than "essential" and less specific than "Platonic" and until we can figure out what that is, I figured we can offer both terms in order to shoot for a meaningful average. --Rikurzhen 23:07, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that what you are calling the immanent realist sense is essentialist, but maybe I do not know what you mean. Essentialism definitely does not mean that words and the semantic categories humans use in communicating are stable. If I have a clear definition of a chair and you show me an apple and I say, "no, that is not a chair, to be called a chair an object must have the following features..." I am not necessarily being essentialist. The problem is that when Aristotle developed his approach to ontology (and of course this goes for Plato too) they did not have Darwin's theory of evolution and Mendelian genetics. The article on universals you cite invokes Heraclitus (you can't step in the same river twice). It is true that people today still use this example to make a point about one way of viewing the world. Every one knows that rivers flow; the question is, is "a river" the course that it takes, or the actual water flowing through it? This is what Heraclitus was really getting at. But species (in the Darwinian account) are not comparable to rivers. Creationists and Linneaus are good examples of essentialists, because their notion of "species" is that they are unchanging. And examples of the species that deviate from the norm are, well, deviant. Whereas in Darwinian thought you couldn't have evolution were it not for those deviations; Darwin's understanding of species is radically different in that species are mutable, and unusual examples of a species are not necessarily freaks. In the study of human evolution we define H. habilus and H. erectus as two distinct species and for the sake of communication we need to have clear-cut definitions. But we (scientists) all know that in reality there were creatures with some degree of variation, and over time the characteristics of a population of these creatures changed and at some point we say "Ah! H. erectus." This is non-essentialist. But you know, most people (non-scientists) I think still use an essentialist view -- that is why they could even conceive of some fossil they called "the missing link." That is why some people think evolution means we are descended from chimps which (they say) is absurd because no chimp has ever given birth to a human. Anyway, I admit that the essentialist article is not great but I don't see the damage that is done in leaving it as is, and hoping that in time people will improve that article. Slrubenstein 23:26, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the misspelling. That should have been "immanent realism". Here's a definition that disambiguates it from Platonic realism about universals. --Rikurzhen 23:44, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * According to immanent realism, there are universals in the spatiotemporal world quite independently of language and the mind. The existence of these universals, further more, is not dependent upon there being Platonic universals existing outside the spatiotemporal world.

Well, I think the essentialism being rejected is both "Platonic" and "immanent realism." For example, creationists believe t hat there is a real thing called "horse;" God created it the way it is ("God brought forth living creatures according to their kinds  ("kinds" being like species). Darwinianists understand the category (or "kind" or "species") "horse" to be fundamentally a statistical phenomenon; actual horses are the result of mutable frequencies of particular genes.  This contradicts both of the types of essentialisms you mention. Slrubenstein 19:01, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I really don't think that they were arguing against immanent realism since that philosophy seems to have emerged in the late 1960s. From my reading, the contemporary alternative to immanent realism is nominalism. There doesn't seem to be anything in the discussion of race that would favor immanent realism over nominalism -- the question of which is whether universals exist or only particulars exist -- but I could be missing something. The immanent realists seem to have a very fine-grained spatiotemporal concept of kinds (universals/types) as things that can come into and out of existance depending on what particulars exists in the world, rather than the eternal/transcendental view of Platonism/creationism/etc. --Rikurzhen 19:33, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate your desire to avoid anachronism, and, since I am not really familiar with the philosophers to whom you refer, I have to defer to you. But one point/question: is it just the name (immanent realism) and the philosophical study that are new, or is it re ally the idea itself that is new? Isn't it possible for scientists to have shared assumptions about reality and their objects of study long before philosophers gave a name to those assumptions? In any event, my main point is that pre-Darwinian scientists were probably essentialists in non-platonic ways. Slrubenstein 20:08, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the history of philosophy to say for certain that Armstrong was the first to write of the basic idea behind immanent realism -- the notion that universals exist, but not outside of their particulars -- and I'm sure that some pre-Darwinians were non-Platonists -- but I think we can get away with offering Platonism as a prominent example of the pre-20 th century thinking about races (as immutable kinds). And yes, I suspect most scientists have a largely shared, but un-examined philosophy, but I'm not enough of a student of philosophy to say for certain whether scientists are decided on immanent realism versus nominalism. I, as one scientist, think that realism about universals makes more sense to the way I talk and think about science; which is why as you said I would prefer to avoid anachronism. Hopefully, someone will come along who knows more about this and straighten it out if I'm wrong. --Rikurzhen 21:00, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Contemporary views on race
I started a new sub-article: Contemporary views on race. It is in need of two things: a comprehensive list of major views, and a good list of questions/topics that will distinguish the views. --Rikurzhen 01:58, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Edit controversy
Jalnet, stop putting in weasel words. We have discussed this topic for a month. You have yet to provide any sources to support your claims, You are wrong, and since you still refuse to provide sources, I infer simply ignorant. Why don't you work on an article about a topic you know something about? Slrubenstein 19:15, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * You, not I, are guilty of using weasel words, as I have already explained ad nauseam above. And please defend your deletion of the word "some".  Jalnet2 19:29, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I deleted two "somes" First, I have no evidence of any scientist s who hold an essentialist view of race. Second, I have no evidence of any anthropologists who believe that race, language, and culture are isomorphic. Not one. Now, if you want to add "some," you must provide examples of scientists who have an essentialist view of race, and anthropologists (in the 20th century) who believe that race, language, and culture are isomorphic. You have never provided evidence. Put up, or shut up. Slrubenstein 19:48, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Au contraire, mon ami. You are required to prove the statement that you inserted.  By your logic, the latter two paragraphs of the introduction should simply be deleted.  In fact, I will delete them if you do not p rove them.  Jalnet2 20:10, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I do not have to prove it because (1) it is common knowledge and (2) how do you prove the absence of something? Here is my proof: read every issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology -- read them all, because I am claiming that they all agree with my point. There is your evidence. Now how about you? Prove your point. Slrubenstein 20:13, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * If it is common knowledge, why can't you prove it? You do not have to prove the absence of something; you need to prove that the rejection in the statement "...evolutionary scientists have rejected..." exists. I can disprove this statement by providing a counterexample; in this case, notable examples of scientists who have not "rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races" include Kevin MacDonald and J. Philippe Rushton. Jalnet 2 20:30, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I just did prove it -- I told you to read every copy of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Also, you did not disprove it. First, MacDonald and Rushton are not evolutionary scientists. They were not trained in paleoanthropology or population genetics or evolutionary biology. They have never done original research in paleoanthropology or population genetics or evolutionary biology. They are psychologists. Second, where do they state that races are "essential" or that they espouse an essentialist view of race? Slrubenstein 20:52, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * They have published work on evolutionary science and are well known in the field. I never said they state that they hold the essentialist view of race.  I said they never rejected it according to the essentialist view.  Other examples I can point to include Gerhard Meisenberg and Vincent Sarich.  Jalnet2 21:12, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Anyone can write about evolution -- that does not make them an evolutionary scientist. They have not published in the journals of evolutionary scientists and they are not cited by evolutionary scientists (accept as examples of racists). Meisenberg is a biochemist, not an evolutionary scientists; Vincent Sarich counts -- but he does not hold to an essentialist view of race. The sentence that you keep vandalizing states that "Since the 1940s, some evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races." Since Rushton and MacDonald are not evolutionary scientists, they do not provide evidence that some evolutionary scientists do subscribe to essentialist views. Moreover, you still have not shown how any of these people accept the essentialist view of race. Slrubenstein 21:16, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't have to show that they hold essentialist views. I only have to show that they never rejected them, in order to provide a counterexample to proves the statement false. Sarich is a co-creator of the Mitochondrial Eve theory and the molecular clock hypothesis; his pioneering work in human evolution certainly qualifies him as an evolutionary scientist. Jal net2 21:34, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The mitochondrial Eve model is based on a notion of race that is fundamentally opposed to essentialist categories. Your own statement is evidence that he rejects essentialist views of race. Slrubenstein 21:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how you can interpret the mitochondrial Eve theory. The bottom line is that Sarich does not reject the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races. Jalnet2 21:46, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rushton, MacDonald and Sarich all appear to be pretty far out of the mainstream. Rushton is a joke. MacDonald defends Irving the holocaust denier, and Sarich defends The Bell Curve, which apart from being racist is just bad science - and someone who defends bad science just isn't credible. So they are all tainted witnesses. Regardless, even if their opinions are valid, they do not represent the mainstream. Using the word some to describe mainstream thought is misleading. Guettarda 22:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * So your defense is to engage in character assassination? Despite the fact that Sarich has made large and well-known contributions to the human evolutionary theory, he is still not mainstream?  Even if the scientists are not mainstream (and they most certainly are; Geoffrey Cowley of Newsweek called the Bell Curve "overwhelmingly mainstream") that still doesn't prove that "evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races."  Jalnet2 23:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't see how this is character assassination. I have said nothing about your character.  I don't know you.  I don't know what kind of a person you are.  I would not presume to judge based on this exchange.  As for Rushton, MacDonald, and Sarich, I can only go by the evidence that is available to me.  Rushton is a joke -  IQ tests are only meaningful within the culture in which they are written, they cannot be used between cultures.  If you base an idea on a profoundly flawed metric, you have no credibility.  If he had not been a psychologist, I might be more forgiving...one can forgive ignorance.  He obviously knows better and still based an idea on a flawed metric.  Not very credible.  The Bell Curve is just bad science - it draws conclusions that are inappropriate from the data, it omits key data, it ignores key variables...if a scientist goes out of his way to defend a scientifically flawed work, it suggests that they are letting politics overwhelm science.  Newsweek is not exactly a scientific journal - and comments made in October 1994 (just a month after the book was published) aren't credible - the press fawns over every new "controvertial" book.  If the correct word is "most" and you replace it with "some" you have created a biased picture of the facts.  To provide a biased picture of the facts is inaccurate, and thus not appropriate for Wikipedia.  Guettarda 00:17, 12 Feb 2005 (U TC)


 * I said you were engaging in character assassination against the scientists, not me. Anyway, it doesn't matter if your opinion is that Rushton is a joke, or if you have qualms about the Bell Curve.  The fact is, there are some scientists who have not rejected the idea of race, whether on an essentialist basis or not, and this is what the dispute is about.  The word "some" should be inserted before the statement "evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics" be cause as has been clearly shown, there are scientists for which this does not apply.


 * By the way, my opinion is that "race does not exist" movements are a joke; does that give me the right to delete all references to it from the encyclopedia? My opinion is that some of the "scientists" who push those ideas aren't credible because they were Marxists and Marxism has been discredited; does that mean that references to their opinions should be deleted from the encyclopedia?  Jalnet2 00:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I apologise - I have a bad habit of putting things too starkly, and it's probably even worse when it is in writing rather than spoken...not that I think the comments were undeserved. But anyway - I agree with your comment there are some scientists who have not rejected the idea of race, whether on an essentialist basis or not - my point is, if you insert the word some it appears that this group is in the minority.  In fact, if you look at the literature, if you look at the opinions of scientists who work in that field, it isn't a minority who reject - or at least question pretty heavily - the idea of "race".  Obviously there are those who do accept the idea.  The people you have cited are not very credible in this area because their past actions have reflected a bias that suggests a political agenda outweighing a scientific one, but I'm sure one could find a good number of others.  But the point is, if most people have that view, it's inaccurate to characterise that as some.  Of course, it's also inaccurate to say every last one or all hold this position.  Everything I have read suggests that it is a minority who still accept the idea of race.  The examples you have cited strengthen that opinion.
 * As for your comment: my opinion is that "race does not exist" movements are a joke; does that give me the right to delete all references to it from the encyclopedia? - I have not made any attempt to delete references to Rushton. I have made no edits regarding Rushton, here or anywhere else.
 * As to your other comment: My opinion is that some of the "scientists" who push those ideas aren't credible because they were Marxists and Marxism has been discredited; does that mean that references to their opinions should be deleted from the encyclopedia? - if you can demonstrate that [named scientists] have based their research on flawed metrics, flawed methodology, then I think you are in a good position to question their research. Also, if you find a someone saying something like "the Soviet Union was a wonderful, freedom-loving regime" you can feel free to laugh at them and ridicule them.  I would join you in doing so.  And, if someone were to later cite them as an authority on what constitutes a "freedom-loving regime, it would be reasonable to question their veracity.  On the other hand, if they held the consensus view on something unrelated to that, then it would not be reasonable to discredit the consensus view on the basis of their statements in a distinct field.  Guettarda 01:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've just reverted Cheesedreams' latest edit. Wikipedia is being very slow for me today, so I wasn't able to check out all the previous versions to decide which I ought to revert to. I therefore reverted to Slrubenstein's last version, as I know he's a long-term, major contributer to this page. SlimVirgin 22:45, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)


 * Guettarda, it is clear now that Jalnet@ knows nothing of science and is pushing a political agenda. It doesn't matter whether a scientists' politics are left or right -- what matters is whether the science itself is good or bad.  MacDonald and Rushton are simply bad scientists.  And Jalnet2 cannot read.  The opening sentence specifies evolutionary scientists -- it does not claim "all scientists," only evolutionary scientists.  And it states that they reject the essentialist view of race.  If Jalnet2 thinks that Sarich has not rejected this view of race, it can only be because Jalnet2 is so ignorant about science that he cannot understand what Sarich is doing. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  18:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Article Should Be Normalized
First of all, the primary article on "race" should be about the clearest current definition(s) of that word. For example, the US Census defines "race" by self-identification on a Census form. When you measure "whites per capita" it is a well-defined number the utility of which may be in doubt but which nevertheless has scientific validity simply because it is well defined. Another clear current definition of "race" is Fst. Even Lewontin has used this definition, if for no other reason than to attempt to debunk its scientific utility (note I did not say validity). These valid definitions should then link to separate articles focusing on their respective subjects.

Secondly, the history of confused definitions of 'race' have relevance here precisely as the confused definitions of 'heat' have relevance: we may be interested in the ways people get confused about the concept of 'heat' -- as, for example, phlogiston -- but it is intellectually dishonest to try to saddle the best current definitions of 'heat' with the entire history of humanity's errors in the struggle for truth -- and that is true even if there are some folks who still hold to the phlogiston theory. A prime example of the violation of this is the arcane reference to Platonic "essentialism" at the start of the article as though it has current relevance. Jim Bowery


 * I regard your relationship with Stormfront edia%3AVotes_for_deletion%2FJewish_ethn ocentrism&diff=10057125&oldid=10056558 as problematic in terms of you attempting to influence this article's contents. I'll be accused of argumentum ad hominem, but such arguments are sometimes valid. SlimVirgin 22:45, Feb 12, 20 05 (UTC)


 * My counter argument is as always that there is a built-in bias on "race" which trumps any supposed counter-bias arguments. You cannot deny that in an environment where the government enforces a particular viewpoint that people who may be active in promoting alternate viewpoints may have to be allowed to contribute to articles in which they are interested.  Claims of neutrality are always more suspect than are the motives of those who profess non-neutrality but never more so than when the government is throwing people in prisons over the issue. Jim Bowery 23:30, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Not in this case. The fact that Jalnet2 keeps insisting that some people accept the essentialist notion of race is evidence enough that some still do.  In any event, to say that evolutionary scientists have come to reject this view is an accurate statement and violates no standards of good writing. Secondly, the claim that the article should be about the "clearest" definition violates our NPOV policy, as what is "clearest" depends on one's point of view.  NPOV requires that we provide accounts of all major, credible views -- even if the result is several definitions of race.  The notion that self-identity has scientific validity because it is clearly denied is simply not so.  For one thing, there is considerable data concerning contradictions in how people self-identify.  Also, what does it mean to be "scientifically" valid?  The example of self-definition given above is explicitly political, as it reflects the US census.  It is no surprise that people in other societies define race differently, and that scientists (as opposed to politicians and policy-makers) have other definitions.  In this context, the US census definition is by no means "the clearest." Slrubenstein   |  Talk  23:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Jalnet2 is not a citable authority. Come up with a cite of someone who has provided an operational definition of "essentialist race" that is currently used by some received authority and I'll retract my statement about essentialism.  Otherwise it belongs in the same place with regard to the race article as phlogiston occupies with respect to the article on heat.  Secondly, as to what does it mean to for a definition to be scientifically valid is simply this:  It is clear enough to be reproducible?  Self-identification is open to doubts only to the extent that people answer one way at one time and another way at another time but this is hardly a serious practical problem in terms of reproducibility.  Fst is open to doubts only to the extent that measurements of gene frequencies and resulting calculations are not reproducible.Jim Bowery 23:30, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * You ignore my point. I know of no one who has an operationalizable essentialist definition of race.  This is one reason scientists have rejected it -- which is exactly the point made in the article (scientists have rejected it).  I do not see why you are spending so much time criticzing one sentence of the article.  My mention of Jalnet2 was only in response to your suggestion that it is arcane and lacking relevance.  I did not mention Jalnet2 as a citable source -- I mentioned him as an example, to show you that people still exist who believe in an essentialist view of race.  That is reason enough for the article to devote one entire whole sentence to informing readers that scientists have rejected this view.  I do not see any grounds for your suggestion that the sentence does not belong in the article.  As for "clear enough to be reproducible," you can go ahead and believe that if you want.  I know of no scientist who would agree. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  23:57, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I addressed your point when I said "it [essentialist race] belongs in the same place with regard to the race article as phlogiston occupies with respect to the article on heat." Furthermore I'm not criticizing just one sentence but the structure of the entire article in its obsession with paper tigers while there are serious conflicts going on about race.  As for "scientists" you know -- if they think Reproducibility isn't the touchstone of science then they aren't scientists at all. Jim Bowery 00:17, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You misunderstand science. Experiments should be reproducible. The fact that others use the same definition is not enough to make some thing scientific. What are the paper tigers to which you refer? Slrubenstein  |  Talk  00:49, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * No, you misunderstand what I said. I said reproducible definitions were scientifically valid.  As for paper tigers, you just raised one with me by saying that I said scientifically valid definitions were sufficient to in themselves for science.  Of course I didn't say that, and of course the article is chalk-full of paper tigers because you are a dominant presence in the writing of the article. Jim Bowery 02:03, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Geography predicts human genetic diversity
Someone may want to add this to the article. Here's the ref: Current Biology, Vol 15, R159-R160, 8 March 2005 --Rikurzhen 17:58, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

doubling
can somebody with an overview of recent changes un-double the article? (at first, I thought, omfg has it grown! :) dab (&#5839;) 18:14, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * done; that's happened a few times recently. --Rikurzhen 19:35, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Puzzling changes
I'm puzzled by this diff - the entry in which the changes are being made is not present in the previous version of the page. How can you make changes to something that wasn't there to begin with?

In addition, you should check out those links. IMO they are inappropriate, but I'd like a second opinion. Guettarda 19:39, 10 Mar 2 005 (UTC)

Disputed passage
I removed the following words a while back, and have now received feedback to the effect that my removal of the passage is not appreciated.


 * Social scientists have argued that this shift is motivated by political and religious perceptions, and not by science. They cite as an example the self-assertion by Jews that they are a distinct race from 'Arabs'. This claim is based upon a religious belief of lineal descent from someone who lived nearly 4,000 years ago named Abraham and his son, Issac. The counterweight supposition is that all Arabs are descended from Abraham's other son, Ishmael. Scientifically, it is nonsensical, but it is the foundation of the Jewish religion, nation and 'race'. Welcome to a new dimension of discussion of the very old human perception of race.

This passage was added by changing the ending of the original paragraph:
 * Many anthropologists, drawing on such biological research, think common race definitions, or any race definitions pertaining to humans are without taxonomic validity. They argue that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, and that the races observed vary according to the culture examined. They further maintain that race is best understood as a social construct. Some scientists have argued that this shift is motivated more by political than scientific reasons.

So the idea that was revised by the other contributor was that primarily political reasons were behind the shift to a "social constructionist" view of [race]. The political reasons, according to the version that I reverted, depend on a religious view held by both Jews and Arabs. It seems pretty obvious to me that the Jews and the Arabs are being blamed for a shift from the assertion that [races] are "real" to the assertion that [races] are socially constructed. That idea conflicts with the writer's own assertion that biological inheritance is the rationale for Jews and Arabs to assert that they are different races.

If the Jews and the Arabs take events recorded in religious texts to determine their view of race (in ignorance, in defiance, or whatever of scientific research), to do so is an instance of social construction of race. In fact, it could be a rather blatant example if the two groups asserted a great disparity between the inherited characteristics of members of each of the two groups. But the [fact] that the two groups make these two socially constructed [races] does not make them people who push for a social-constructionist view of [race]. Quite the contrary.

Besides being logically inconsistent, as I have outlined above, the passage I removed is, IMHO, an instance of the "Jewish conspiracy" hysteria that imagines that on the basis of some power not available to other people the Jews can influence all sorts of things -- including scientists who would otherwise realize that there really are [racial] differences. -- But it is by this account the Jews and the Arabs who want to maintain the reality of [races], no?

What the Jews and the Arabs happen to think about [race] might be appropriate to mention somewhere in the article, I'd have to see a coherent and NPOV discussion to have an opinion on that score. But I think it is entirely inappropriate to put in the general introduction to this article a provocative statement such as: "Scientifically, it is nonsensical, but it is the foundation of the Jewish religion, nation and 'race'. Welcome to a new dimension of discussion of the very old human perception of race." It tends to frame the entire article as though it is a propaganda piece by Jewish and Arab ideologists. P0M 20:04, 5 Apr 2 005 (UTC)

(P.S. I'll hash this out here, not on my talk pa e, since it concerns everybody. P0M 20:04, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC))


 * I agree with your points. I changed "anthropologists" to "evolutionary and social scientists" which is more inclusive and accurate.  As the paragraph now stands, I think it is precise and accurate. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  20:24, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * The addition is uncited and appears inaccurate as well; this is a Jew-hater's view being attributed to Jews, not a Jewish vi w of themselves. Jayjg (talk) 21:17, 5 Apr 2005 (U TC)

Faith, Humility
Just stopping by, as I seem to do every few months. I dunno... the article has improved in many ways since its elevation to FA status, but I hesitate to say it's net improved. Most of the really clear, incisive sentences have disappeared, bowing to super-careful, almost whispered phrases. For instance, the old mention of the apparent ethnic/racial basis of many genetic disorders (Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, etc.,.) is gone. The inclusion of solid relevant facts like that made this article a real thought provoker. Now it's like one must tip toe through...I wish people would put some real weight on the text appearing at the top of every FA Talk page: "(This) is a Featured Article. We believe it is one of the best examples of the Wikipedia community's work. Changes should not be made lightly, as you will be altering text and/or a thematic progression that by consensus is already of very high quality. Even so, improvement is always possible, particularly by addition of new, interesting text or graphics."... You should have confined yourselves mostly to adding new material. Have some faith in community consensus and be humble enough to let existing FA text stand. If I really get motivated I'll be back to restore a whole truckload of sentences, and even paragraphs, from the FA version. Where redundancies are created, the newer stuff will go. JDG 01:18, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Do you know what date the article was awarded FA status? I'd like to see that version. --Rikurzhen 01:32, May 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, JDG is overstating things quite a bit when he mentions community consensus. This has almost always been a highly contentious article and if anything, it is this current version that has achieved community consensus as it has not changed, in any major way, for quite some time. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  02:50, 24 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't doubt that you're right. But I often wonder if these especially long articles don't disuade most people from reading them at all. Any clue about that date? -- Rikurzhen 03:01, May 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * I found the FA version. The current version is prima facia superior. What is missing? --Rikurzhen 03:37, May 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * As I said above, I agree there are many improvements (and some glaring weaknesses that have been righted). Even so, there were many individual sentences/paragraphs in the FA version that brought the crux of the debate home to the reader in a far more powerful way than anything in the current version. If I can sit down to a major edit you will see the full enumeration. In the meantime, what do you think about the race/ethnicity linkage of certain genetic disorders? It got its due in the FA version as an important issue (which it most certainly is). It seems it's just too stark for the current version. A pity. JDG 08:54, 24 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that many people in health related fields (i.e. physicians but many more) closely identify race (NOT ethnicity, which is cultural, although I know many people use the two words interchangably i.e. without precision) and disease. I have no problem with the article acknowledging this.  However, it must be made clear that this is a convenience for practitioners, not researchers, and to the extent that there is a very high correlation this is usually true in a particular locale.  For example, people in southern Italy also have the sickel cell gene -- malaria was a threat not only in Africa but in the mediterranean.  For historical reasons involving migration patterns among other things, in the US we identified SSA with Blacks.  An evolutionary scientist or population geneticist would not do this.  S/he would know that in certain parts of the world "Black" is isomorphic with a population, but in other parts it is not (it overlaps with other populations or is actually a conglomerate of diverse populations). Slrubenstein   |  Talk  15:32, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

The medical discussion now mostly resides in Race in biomedicine. --Rikurzhen 15:40, May 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * This is why I'm against this movement to limit length of major articles. The whole encyclopedia is turning into a big link chase. Sub-articles should mostly be confined to expanded definitions of terms. Instead, we tear most of the centrally interesting topics out of major articles and pile them into sub-articles far fewer readers will visit, leaving the major articles like this one: well-written, well-considered, balanced, concise, forgettable... What's more, Race in biomedicine is wholly inadequate. No mention is made there of the most clear-cut examples of apparent ethnic/racial basis of genetic disorders/conditions (Tay Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, Lactose Intolerance, etc.,.) JDG 18:52, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Umm... not to nit pick, but CF is mentioned in Race in biomedicine. I focused on quantitative traits more than Mendelian traits because they are more common. Also, I had to mostly write the article on my own and fend off people who wanted to delete stuff. So please add things here or there where it's missing. But as far as talking about biomedicine in this article, it should be less emphasized than multilocus DNA evidence, which more directly addresses the question of race. --Rikurzhen 01:21, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

I just dropped by because my son wanted a decent definition of race. This was not 'it'. How painful and twisted this presentation is. Much of this material doesn't even belong here, in my opinion. I find it depressing that this is considered a 'Featured Article'. Maybe someone with some time and a lot of hubris and a willingness to put up with abuse will actually preface what is here with something resembling an actual definition of race, along with a simple, traditional classification, and a disclaimer pointing the reader to the discussion below. --Fish-man 16:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

New paper on human origins
This really needs to be added to the article: --Rikurzhen 01:34, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * Vinayak Eswaran, Henry Harpending and Alan R. Rogers, Genomics refutes an exclusively African origin of humans, Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 49, Issue 1, July 2005, Pages 1-18. icle/B6WJS-4G3SC6X-1/2/aae7c2810f0d87628e228363c0e1bd66

Questionable graph
''A phylogenetic tree like the one shown above is usually derived from DNA or protein sequences from populations. Often mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome sequences are used to study ancient human demographics. These single-locus sources of DNA do not recombine and are inherited from a single parent. Individuals from the various continental groups tend to be more similar to one another than to people from other continents. The tree is rooted in the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, which is believed to have originated in Africa. Horizontal distance corresponds to two things:''


 * 1) Genetic distance. Given below the diagram, the genetic difference between humans and chimps is roughly 2%, or 20 times larger than the variation among modern humans.
 * 2) Temporal remoteness of the most recent common ancestor. Rough estimates are given above the diagram, in millions of years. The mitochondrial most recent common ancestor of modern humans lived roughly 200,000 years ago, latest common ancestors of humans and chimps between four and seven million years ago.

''Chimpanzees and humans belong to different genera, indicated in red. Formation of species and subspecies is also indicated, and the formation of "races" is indicated in the green rectangle to the right (note that only a very rough representation of human phylogeny is given, and the points made in the preceding section, insofar as they apply to an "African race", are understood here). Note that vertical distances are not meaningful in this representation.''

I removed the above from the article since the graph is unsourced and its meaning is unclear. At any rate, it's misleading to imply that the difference between Asians and Europeans is of the same nature than between Humans and Chimpanzees. _R_ 6 July 2005 21:02 (UTC)


 * Nothing wrong with the graph (although I see one small error). Similar graphs are found in published papers. The differences between any two organisms or group of organisms can be described in terms of DNA/protein similarity, including humans. A larger graph could include any or all organisms (see Phylogenetic tree). --Rikurzhen July 6, 2005 21:11 (UTC)

I know what a phylogenetic tree is. This graph seems to imply that Europeans form a monophyletic taxon, which is false. Besides, I wonder what its point is, stuck in the middle of the section "The displacement from Africa model and the rise of cladistics". _R_ 6 July 2005 21:40 (UTC)


 * The editors who have worked with this article, made that graph, etc. seem to be fine with it. Let's not play the game of a thousand shifting criticisms. Please outline your concerns precisely and in a list so that they might be understood and addressed separately. As I read you, you are claiming that (1) the graph is inaccurate and (2) the graph is irrelevant. If those are your objections, I disagree with them strongly. --Rikurzhen July 6, 2005 21:49 (UTC)

Yes, these are my objections. As you want a list, here it is: _R_ 6 July 2005 22:58 (UTC)
 * 1) This graph suggests that the fuzzy groups called "races" have the same conceptual status as the well-defined species or genera.
 * 2) The graph doesn't add any information relevant to the topic of the section. It's merely an illustration of the preceding paragraph (and a slightly incorrect one, since it doesn't mention Australians). The sheer volume of text needed to explain the graph turns it into an unneeded distraction.
 * 3) No source is given. Given point 1, it would be interesting to know who holds the view that it's admissible to represent races and species in the same way on the same graph.

Responses --Rikurzhen July 6, 2005 23:13 (UTC)
 * 1) that's irrelevant; such graphs are commonly used to describe the phylogenetic relationship of populations
 * 2) that's irrelevant; the point of the graph is to place humans in a proper scale with other hominids
 * 3) I don't know what source was originally used I suspect mtDNA and Y-chr DNA (the creator could be contacted), but the values are familiar; a quick Google search finds a similar graph published in PNAS here that uses chimps as an outgroup


 * Thanks for the link. I notice a number of significant differences between this graph based on real data and the one I wish to remove:
 * the leaves represent individuals
 * Africans don't form a monophyletic group but constitute a series of groups diverging from the main line at different times
 * it gives relevant information that isn't already included in the article.
 * _R_ 6 July 2005 23:48 (UTC)

I would enjoy seeing improvements to the article, although a balance must be struck between details and ease of understanding. I don't see any reason for simply removing the graph in your last comment. Put it back while you consider a replacement and we can see if anyone else has helpful input. --Rikurzhen July 6, 2005 23:53 (UTC)
 * I think that I already improved the article by removing the graph and I'm not sure that a replacement is needed. _R_ 7 July 2005 00:19 (UTC)


 * Unilaterially deleting material which has withstood the test of time and innumerable edits is poor practice. I've started a straw poll and in the meantime restore the material. --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 00:23 (UTC)


 * See also a short previous discussion, including comments from the author of the graph, here: Talk:Race/Archive 13. -Willmcw July 7, 2005 00:50 (UTC)

Yes, Delete

 * _R_ 7 July 2005 00:55 (UTC) See above !
 * Looks like yet more racist garbage is finding its way to these articles. Can be interpreted as making the article take a sort of racialist slant 172 7 July 2005 01:08 (UTC)
 * Delete. Seems similarly suggestive and unscientifically ambiguous, though perhaps even more subtle than the info and method of presentation of Race and intelligence. zen master T 7 July 2005 01:45 (UTC)

No, Keep

 * Keep it is fine, see talk above --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 00:23 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's not perfect, but is useful --Paul B July 7, 2005 00:28 (UTC)
 * Keep; wholesale deletion is far out of proportion to problems cited. --DAD T 7 July 2005 01:45 (UTC)
 * Keep. I would like the fully tree of the family of man, even showing my own twisted twig, but the general outline is helpful. P0M 7 July 2005 02:3 8 (UTC)
 * Keep. Informative. Arbor 7 July 2005 06:51 (UTC)
 * keep of course. If there are serious suggestions on how to improve it, I can do that. dab (&#5839;) 7 July 2005 09:00 (UTC)

Comments
I am a non-scientist so apologies for my imprecise language. I don't think the graph is "fine" because it implies that terms like "Europeans" and "Africans" are adequate to label different population-groups. I rather doubt they are. It also presupposes the validity of race as popularly defined, because of the continent-based labels it uses. Nevertheless, it does give a useful rough guide to population histories and avoids obvious racism by placing Africans on the central, rather than divergent, line. --Paul B July 7, 2005 00:37 (UTC)

re:racist. WP is no place for ad hominem attacks. Current opinions in the fields of human population genetics and genomics should be the final arbiter of this conflict, not the personal opinions of authors. I've presented a very similar figure from a prestigous journal and could easily produce many others. That's the important point w.r.t. WP articles. --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 01:14 (UTC)
 * It's a straw poll and not a formal academic debate. I do not intend to change my vote. 172 7 July 2005 01:23 (UTC)
 * Nonetheless, the reasons for a vote are as important as the vote itself. The motivations of others is not a reason to remove encyclopedia-worthy material. --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 01:34 (UTC)
 * This research seems quite recent, and I'd like to see it gain more recognition among other encyclopedias and sourcebooks before including it here. Also, just about all of the race-related articles on Wikipedia tend to draw a disproportional amount of material from genetics and biology as opposed to sociology, and this table just reinforces this asymmetry. 172 7 July 2005 01:38 (UTC)
 * recent: try late 1980s and early 1990s... genetics and biology: this graph is from the section about cladistics... if the article is imbalanced w.r.t. fields of study, add rather than deleting --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 01:52 (UTC)
 * That can be recent for some of us... I don't see this material in other sourcebooks and encyclopedias featured so prominently in general articles on race... Correct me if I'm wrong, as I am not close to a specialist in this area. 172 7 July 2005 01:57 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't know about other encyclopedias (I am most famaliar with the primary literature), but I hardly see why we would want to limit ourselves to essentially ancient (i.e., 1970s) data and interpretation. --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 02:14 (UTC)

To find similar graphs, follow this google search --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 01:54 (UTC)
 * Especially replete with similar graphs is this paper. --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 02:14 (UTC)

§ I think I figured out correctly what you all are talking about when you mention "the graph." It's the rectilinear thing that traces pathways of divergence among different groups of humans, right?

§ The graph goes back to work by Luca Cavalli-Sforza (The History and Geogrphy of Human Genes, 1994) and even earlier people who worked with more limited methods to elucidate some of the same kinds of information. The picture gets more and more refined as time goes on, but the general picture presented in the graph is not by any means new or untested. Many times the genetic studies are supported by studies of language similarities and by the transmission of cultural artifacts. For instance, American Indians not only look more like Chinese, Manchurians, etc. than they look like Swedes, they also share more genetic traits (and not just the traits that relate to skin color and other surface features). But there is also a cultural continuity in the fact that both the ancient (and recent) Chinese and the American Indians use what is called a "semi-lunar knife."

§ A major problem with language is that it breaks the world into discrete entities. Through our own experience we know that the sparkplug of an automobile is a discrete part that can be easily detached from the rest of the machine, and we have a personal experience of the fact that the branch of a tree does not detach in the same way. Anything that is detached is done by disrupting a continuous expanse of material in three dimensions. [Races] are like the branches of trees. There is no definite number of [races] because as long as one is making arbitrary cuts one can cut above or below a fork. Much as the needles of a pine tree differ from branch to branch as one ascends the tree and depending on the amount of sunlight that is received, humans vary along their "branches" according to their environments. There are also some changes that have occurred in "junk" (apparently non-functional) parts of chromosomes that are convenient ways of estimating the genetic propinquity of populations. In all cases there are no sudden discontinuities in inherited characteristics unless there has been recent movements of people from one part of the globe to a remote part of the globe. If you have a ribbon that shades slowly from red to violet you will notice a discontinuity only if you bring the two ends together. They appear to be parts of two entirely different things. Similarly, if you bring a member of the aboriginal population of Australia to Iceland, you will notice strong differences in appearance and other characteristics. The practical question is how to contextualize that difference for the general population so that they do not treat "the other end of the ribbon" as though it were something non-human, and also assemble statistical data pertinent to major groups of people that happen to differ in ways that a well functioning society will respond to. For instance, the people who grow on my twig have almost no natural defense against UV radiation and get skin cancer in high places and tropical climes. The people who grow on the twig where sits my friend from Malawi are in very little danger of basal cell carcinoma, but if forced to live near the Arctic Circle they would have to get supplements of vitamin D. In those simple cases we could talk about "unpigmented people" and "heavily pigmented people," and I would group with the Ainu of Japan. But there may be differences between the Ainu and the Irish that are medically important. E.g., if there were a famine it would probably be a good idea to send lots of dairy products to Ireland, but it could be disasterous to send them to the Ainu in Japan because of the likelihood that as a group they (not having my mutant status ;-) are lactose intolerant. We need words for the differences that appear when we view widely separated parts of the continuum that is the family of man. Unfortunately, the ones we have are contaminated with all sorts of emotions, most of them not helpful, and if we made up new words people would spoil them in no time. So there you are.

§ By the way, I have no objection to complaining that some way of saying something "serves the purposes of racists," or something like that, but let us all please be careful to avoid characterizing people by applying to them words so strongly tinged with negative judgments of character. P0M 7 July 2005 02:31 (UTC):

I can't see this article w/o the mtDNA tree (even though it is somewhat outdated compared to multilocus trees) it is a classical piece of data that is important for the historical narrative built into this article. If anything, the article will soon need to be supplemented by emerging theories of human evolution like the paper I presented in a top-level section above. --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 03:01 (UTC)

§ I've actually thought of doing what I did for the Chinese language(s) articles. They have the same problem because nobody's Chinese is exactly like anybody else's, and the whole thing forms a tree structure such that what the majority population in Taiwan speaks is about as different from what people in Beijing speak as English is from German. It also occurs to me that it would be useful to have a chart that would show more detail as the reader zooms in on it. The present chart is not "wrong" if you realize that you are looking at the tree from such a great difference that you can only see its major outlines, not the medium-sized branches much less the leaves. P0M 7 July 2005 03:18 (UTC) h

ok, here is my take on it: dab (&#5839;) 7 July 2005 09:08 (UTC)
 * disclaimer, I made this graph.
 * I cannot possibly conceive how it is considered "racist". That's a ridiculous accusation
 * The point of the graph is precisely to show that the terms 'species' and 'race' are not the same. It expresses that 'race' is applied to genetic variation of about 1/10th, or one order of magnitude smaller than 'species'.
 * The reason I made it was in order to replace a worse graph, which had 'broken' lines, and which did suggest that race is pretty much the same as species.
 * Furthermore, I stated that the vertical dimension has no qualitative significance. If people are too stupid to read the graph, that's hardly my fault, although I am open to suggestions as to how to improve readability. Anticipating confusion through misreadings, I have also switched the 'usual' suggestive order of placing Africans next to the monkeys, vertically that was present in the earlier version. This graph was actually designed to reduce latent racism from design. Now the Europeans appear next to the monkeys. Well, the lines have to be arranged in some order, and as I said, repeatedly, the vertical dimension has no meaning. read it horizontally.
 * as for "unsourced", the information in the graph is trivial and has been known for decades. It should be in any good biology textbook. That's really not a serious objection.


 * also, the graph is supposed to sumarize Image:Rosenberg 6clusters human popluations.png, where "Africans" are orange, "Europeans" are blue, and "Asians" are pink (green "Oceanians" are not resolved, and orange "Americans" are considered a subgroup of Asians). I honestly don't know any better term to refer to the three major groups. Obviously (painfully so), not every person in Africa is an "African" genetically, etc. dab (&#5839;) 7 July 2005 13:20 (UTC)

random spaces
what's up with the random addition of spaces to the talk page and the article? software bug? user bug? --Rikurzhen July 7, 2005 04:12 (UTC)

Are you seeing spaces in or between words that don't belong there? That's what I was seeing. I thought it was possibly my computer, which I have been overburdening the last few hours. But since I only reverted the article it's hard to see how that could have done anything. Next time I notice something I'll take a closer look at it. P0M 7 July 2005 06:44 (UTC)

n

Invalid article
copied from Talk:Validity of human races, where it won't be noticed, for consideration here --Rikurzhen 16:40, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

As it stands, this is just a repeat of the race article, which is essentially a mish-mash of arguments over paper-tigers. The article titled "race" should be retitled "Human race folk taxonomies" and the main article on "race" should limit itself to numerical taxonomy of human races. To do otherwise is to engage in strawman argumentation over the concdept of race akin to saddling the article on "heat" with a long, drawn out argument over historic conceptions like phlogiston and relegating discussion of the statistical definition of heat to an article titled "validity of heat". Its intellectually dishonest POVing to structure a topic with the least consilient concepts saddling the primary article.Jim Bowery 02:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

changes to intro
re: Viewpoints differ as to whether race is a folk taxonomy or a scientific classification. I absolutely insist on an authoritative citation and proper attribution.


 * "Race is a social construct, not a scientific classification," Robert S. Schwartz, M.D. wrote (in "Race Is a Poor Measure," New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 344, No. 18, May 3, 2001). "Any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations is both arbitrary and subjective."


 * The American Anthropological Association’s official statement on race declares: “physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them.” The group’s president-elect, Alan H. Goodman, was quoted in a Baltimore Sun article of last Oct. 10 as saying, “Race as an explanation for human biological variation is dead,” and comparing the race concept to a gun in the hands of racists.


 * Other POV is the Risch stuff. Jokestress 22:38, 17 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Excellent. I have seen all of this and I if it isn't clearly spelled out in the article, then that should be fixed. However, I don't see anything here to support the special phrases "folk taxonomy" and "scientific taxonomy", which I suspect is (1) an inappropriate oversimplification and (2) a minority way to describe the range of notable POVs. For example, does Neil Risch think race is a folk taxonony or a scientific taxonomy? It doesn't seem clear to me that he can be placed neatly into either category. --Rikurzhen 00:49, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Don't delete mention of the very lengthy discussion in this article of the relationship between race and genetics.

The addition about changing over time and place is good, and actually does summarize part of this article. I'm putting that back. --Rikurzhen 21:45, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

re: race and genetics... see the section titled Arguments for races as lineages, which begins Genetic data can be used to infer population structure and assign individuals to groups that often correspond with their self-identified geographical ancestry. --Rikurzhen 21:48, July 17, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see something a little more scientific than that. Please cite a source for a "race" that has a clear and consistent genetic constant throughout the entire population. Jokestress 21:52, 17 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Read the entire article, and if you still have a question, let me know. --Rikurzhen 21:54, July 17, 2005 (UTC)


 * "clear and consistent genetic constant throughout the entire population" -- this is a straw man; no serious definition of race requires such a thing. Hello, admixture and fuzzy sets.  --DAD T 23:43, 17 July 2005 (UTC)


 * As an examplar, read the Tang (2005) paper here. The results are astonishing. --DAD T 00:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

race (biology) article
I removed this from the disambiguation at the top:

For the biological race, see race.

I suggest deleting that page entirely, with its discussion of the races of limes, the races of cats, and the other statements covered more extensively and accurately here. Anyone care to put it on VfD? Jokestress 05:02, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The page needs to be expanded. The terminology is basic in regards to honeybees. Pollinator 05:10, July 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * I suspect VfD will fail, as noted on Talk:Race (biology), but have cleaned the page up dramatically and nominated it for merging with Subspecies. Thanks for the heads-up. --DAD T 05:14, 18 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I have modified the disambiguation at the top a bit to reflect the race/subspecies synonym used to describe non-humans. Jokestress 05:22, 18 July 2005 (UTC)


 * This change is inaccurate and POV. Inaccurate because race is not synonymous with subspecies, and POV because it implies that there is a a biological basis for dealing with humans differently from animals.  Guettarda 05:32, 18 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Disagree with your statement about POV; the Race covers a significant dispute regarding the biological reality of human races. I agree with your statement regarding inaccuracy, and have modified the header appropriately.  But see my comments regarding archaic usage at Talk:Race (biology)--DAD T 05:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)


 * It is POV because (i) it assumes that the norms of biology do not apply to humans; it is inaccurate because some people (like Coon) considered human races to be distinct subspecies, rather than elements of a polymorphic species. Guettarda 12:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I like the new wording, but I don't see a reason to say see race instead of see race (biology). I also suggest moving to the second sentence: For race as a general biological classification, see race (biology). It seems that the two sentences should be paired, since the separate article looks like it's here to stay. Jokestress 06:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * No problem with that. Guettarda 12:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Today's sentence: observed, phenotype, genetics
I would like to go through this and race and intelligence sentence by sentence to review POV. Yesterday we got the disambig and the first sentence covered. Today I'd like to raise some issues about this:


 * The most widely observed races are those based on skin color, facial features, ancestry, and genetics.

Comments:


 * "Observed" seems POV. I think the point is use of the categories.
 * Race categories developed long before genetics. I think this needs to note that phenotype was the rule of thumb before genotype came into the picture. Genetics was applied to existing categories, not the basis for races.
 * "Ancestry" is one I don't know about. Is this meant as a scientific term? What race is based on ancestry?

I propose


 * "The most widely used racial categories developed based on phenotype (especially skin color and facial features). Comparing genetics research and ancestry to these existing categories have led some to conclude that race categories have scientific validity, and have led others to propose new taxonomies."

The main issue for me is that race developed based on visible human differences. I feel it's important to acknowledge that these categories were in place when genetics and other newer technologies were applied to them. Jokestress 17:51, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

That's a good change. I would use "some biological basis" in place of "scientific validity", because the two specific alternative views on that point seem to be race is biologically meaningless or race has some biological basis. What do you think? --Rikurzhen 18:10, July 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree in general with Jokesress's plan. However, while I agree that "The most widely used racial categories developed based on phenotype (especially skin color and facial features)." is true in the US and I presume much of Europe, it is not true in Brazil.  There has to be some elegant way to make clear that scientists and non-scientists often use different criteria for race, and that the criteria and their meaning varies from society to society, up front &mdash without losing the kind of general description of "race" that the article should open with. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)


 * phenotype- It's my understanding that the Brazil races are all based on phenotype. The article talks about tests where people are categories by photos, which suggests a purely visual input for the decisions. If your question is about phenotype because it is too scientific and sort of applied retroactively to lay terminology, we could say "visible characteristics" or "traits."


 * I am afraid you have it wrong. Skin pigmentation is one variable, and obviously the most visible one, so Brazilians are in the strange perception of often identifying people's race by skin-color, while at the same time knowing that they could very well be wrong.  The conclusion of the photo-experiments is that people (in any sample large enough to yeild significant results) actually never apply racial identification consistently when the only information they have is the photograph.  The level of education and wealth are indeed more important.  I know a researcher in Brazil who argues that Brazilians do have a "pigmentocracy" because they think "white" is better than "black" &mdash; but they do not (according to this researcher) have a racial system given the way they actually identify people's race.  The way it works is this: between "white" and "black" there is a huge continuum of pigment-marked "races."  But if you can find two people with exactly the same skin color (measured by whatever objective apparatus exists), and one has a post-graduate education and a high salary at a white-color job, and the other has a (well, the equivalent of a US) 6th grade education, and earns relatively low wages doing manual labor, then although they will both be identified "according to skin pigmenation," everyone will agree that the better-educated wealthier one has lighter colored skin than the less-educated poor one, and they will be identified by skin-pigmentation, but never by the same skin pigment term.  This is only to explain the situation in Brazil.  As far as your general point, I agree that "phenotypic" is more precise &mdash; as used by most biologists.  The problem is that in many places, at different times, phenotype was not the basis for race.  For a long time in the United States many people with clearly different phenotypic traits were all lumped together as belonging to one race, and in Brazil people with the same phenotyic traits are regularly identified as belonging to different races.  Also, your claim that "race developed based on visible human differences" &mdash; if I am understanding you correctly to mean "originally developed" and by "visible human" you mean phenotypic (i.e. owning a Bentley is visible and used in Brazil to determine race, although it can't be called phenotypic) &mdash; I am sorry to say that you are wrong.  There is considerable documentary evidence that during the time of the Roman Empire, people who looked alike often belonged to different races (e.g. there are texts that tell stories of a person of one race being misrecognized as belonging to a different race, and texts that simply make clear that race was not identified based on phynotypic traits). Slrubenstein   |  Talk 01:03, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


 * some biological basis- I think that is inaccurate. Biologically meaningless/meaningful is the debate. I think I would agree that the traits used to categorize by race have "some biological basis."


 * Given what I explained above, this would have to be modified to communicate that there are actually three situations: first, societies where traits used to identify race do indeed have some biological basis (granted that "how much" varies; I would include Brazil here, but at one extreme of the "some" continuum); second, societies in which people wrongly believe that the different races can be identified based on biological traits; and third, societies in which racial categorization have no biological basis. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 01:03, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Revised proposal:


 * "The most widely used racial categories developed based on visible traits (especially skin color and facial features). Comparing genetics research and ancestry to these existing categories have led some to conclude that race categories are biologically meaningful, and have led others to propose new taxonomies."


 * I think I still prefer "phenotype" over "visible traits." Jokestress 23:06, 18 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Biologically meaningless/meaningful -- good
 * It's my understanding that the Brazil races are all based on phenotype that was my impression also???
 * No, see above Slrubenstein  |  Talk 01:03, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * phenotype versus visible traits -- "visible traits" may actually be more precise, because phenotype is a category that includes physiology as well as anatomy (as well as things we'd probably not want to indicate, like the electrophoresis pattern of an RFLP). --Rikurzhen 23:27, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

The Brazil situation suggests primarily traits, but also visible status. Brazil seems anomalous, so "widely used" probably still applies (traits appear to be part of the mix in Brazil). In the U.S., race categories are often further divided by status (e.g. "white trash," specific slurs for poor or unassimilated minorities). Revised proposal:


 * "The most widely used racial categories developed based on visible traits (especially skin color and facial features). Some cultures have categories linked to socioeconomic status. Comparing genetics research and lineage to these existing categories have led some to conclude that traditional race categories are biologically meaningful, and have led others to propose new taxonomies."

As we move through this, I may make some suggestions for combining this with a later sentence. Jokestress 00:50, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Question: what does "have led others to propose new taxonomies" refer to? Suggestion: Depending on the answer to that question... "The most widely used racial categories developed based on visible traits (especially skin color and facial features). Some cultures have categories linked to socioeconomic status. The results of genetics and evolution research have led some to conclude that traditional race categories are biologically meaningful to the extent that they indicate ancestry ... and have led others to propose new taxonomies." --Rikurzhen 01:26, July 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, "taxonomies" does get left hanging. The problem is it gets discussed (and linked) twice in the current summary. What I feel is missing is that the data has led to different POVs and models. It seems that all the models resulting from recent reasearch should be all in one sentence. I think linking to evolution when saying evolution is fine, and then list the proposed models. See below. Jokestress 02:26, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Summary overview
Perhaps instead of sentence by sentence, we need to look at the gestalt of the summary in terms of three paragraphs (the standard Wikipedia summary). Right now paragraph 3 is just a reiteration of 2.

Proposal for each paragraph (off the top of my head):


 * 1. General description and current use(s)
 * 2. History of the paradigm
 * 3. Current controversies

I would look at other categories dealing with the clash of differing scholarly (esp. scientific) and lay use, like sex. It might be helpful to acknowledge the controversy in paragraph one, but expand it in 3. The summary should reflect the article, which is very detailed on the recent scientific research. Jokestress 02:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Ideally, the intro would summarize the article. This comes close, but we do miss a few sections. --Rikurzhen 06:38, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

structure and ethnicity
I put this here for discussion:

Recent research correlating self-identified race with population genetic structure indicates the folk taxonomy and scientific taxonomy of race are nearly identical.

The citations do not mention race anywhere in the articles. They do mention ethnic groups. This should either be down in the population section or on that page. Jokestress 19:04, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I can read the full text of the article. They use race, for example: "Family Race Vector Estimates from Self-Reported Information for Families with EA or AA Proportion >50%". --Rikurzhen 19:16, August 6, 2005 (UTC)


 * Cool. Then maybe this should go with the Tang (2005). I want to get something into the top about folk biology as a first-order attempt or prototaxonomy. The way it is now as an either/or of folk taxonomy or scientific classification isn't really accurate. Jokestress 19:43, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I guess so. I've only read the abstract. --Rikurzhen 19:51, August 6, 2005 (UTC)


 * Moreover the distinction between "race" and "ethnicity" is a logical fallacy here. "ethnicity", "folk taxonomy" and "race as a social construct" are essentially the same.  The paper's use of the word "ethnicity" as "self-identified" is subsitutable for "the social-identity with which these people identify" or more directly "the social construct with which these people identify".  In other words, "ethnicity" is the word people use for "race" to emphasize the social construct as opposed to the biological construct.  The fact that it has come into widespread acceptance is simply a reflection of the dominant point of view and should not be used to confuse the issue. Jim Bowery 21:16, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * At some point I want to discuss the perceived difference between "race" and "self-identified race." I am not sure I see the distinction being made by some editors. It seems to be a variant of biological reality versus social reality. Jokestress 21:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * "race" is a word with multiple senses. Most of the arguments boil down to a fight over which sense gets to occupy mindshare when "race" appears.  Dictionaries deal with this by listing the various senses of the word in order of their likely meaning. So it really is nonsense to talk about "the perceived difference bewteen 'race' and 'self-identified race'".  "Self-identified race" is one sense of the word "race" just as is "populaton genetic structure race" a sense of the word "race".  The politics driving "debates" about "race" to preposterousness have been about trying to make sure no one thinks that "populaton genetic structure race" really exists, or, if it does exist, that it bears little or no relationship to "self-identified race".  This has enjoyed state support and enforcement so no one should be surprised that the "viewpoint" so supported is widespread. Jim Bowery 23:46, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * "population genetic structure race" returns no search engine hits. It appears most biologists and scientists have abandoned the term "race" for precisely the reasons you mention: its lay use undermines its usefulness and precision as a scientific term. With a few notable exceptions (the medical discussion among them), it only gets used in reference to the social reality in publications these days. The division of populations into genetic clusters of three, four, five, six or more groupings appears to be based on the interpreter. Jokestress 00:16, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm fairly sure what he means. A google scholar search without the quotes: . Whether to apply the word "race" to the concept of "population genetic structure" is a judgment that is largely independent of scientific considerations, but it is within science to ask whether "population genetic structure" and "self-identified race" are related. --Rikurzhen 00:42, August 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * I certainly agree with that last sentence. Jokestress 00:54, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree that scientists have abandoned the term "race" due to its meaning as a folk taxonomy. Scientists didn't abandon the use of the word "heat" due to its meaning as a folk taxonomy when they came up with statistical mechanical descriptions of it that unified it with the mechanics of motion did they?  No, the sole reason scientists have abandoned the use of the term "race" is because the very concept came into disrepute for political reasons and their funding sources were almost entirely from the government. Jim Bowery 18:14, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Chronological order
I propose these two categories:


 * 2 Summary of different definitions of race
 * 3 Scale of race research

get moved to 4.2. The article should start with how the term evolved prior to the 19th century, then get into the 20th century debates described in 2 and 3. Thoughts? Objections? Jokestress 08:10, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * if you mean move them to the top of 4.2, then that should work. that's still near enough to the top to get the point across early. --Rikurzhen 18:14, August 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * I just reordered it. Take a look and see if this makes sense. I think this helps readers understand how the concept was used prior to race as viewed through modern scientific methods. Jokestress 19:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree strongly. Phlogiston doesn't head the page about heat. Jim Bowery 18:17, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not aware of any ongoing debate as to whether heat is a folk taxonomy or scientific classification. Jokestress 19:40, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Clearly its both. That's the whole point of leading with the Skol et al paper.  Jim Bowery 01:30, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Suggested changes
This is my first exposure to wikipedia so please excuse any formatting or procedural difficulties. I have a few suggestions for the future revision of this article (I thought they should go up for discussion instead of me making changes to a well-established article):

1. I think the first sentence of this article needs to be revised. A 'race' is not population of humans but a term used to describe populations of humans. Although this is perhaps overly sensitive, it more both accurate and more sensitive to the controversial nature of the concept.

2. Given how Wikipedia's style is supposed to reflect all points of view without distilling controversy into separate sections (see section on words to avoid Words to Avoid), I would argue that the two sub-articles entitled "validity of human races” - found under the heading “20th- and 21st-Century debates over race” - and “contemporary views on race” – found under the heading Summary of different definitions of race” - should be integrated into the main article. Separation of these topics, particularly the former, lead to the idea that what is in the main article is not as contentious as what is in the sub-article. Furthermore, many of the points in the sub-articles are either redundant or important enough to me included in the main article.

3. Although I do not have an immediate solution, I think the article also fails to distinguish between the concepts of “usefulness” and “validity” in dealing with ‘race’. Just because the category of ‘race’ may be usefully employed in social or medical research does not directly mean that it is a valid taxonomic category (according to most social or biological standards). Social scientists often use the category of ‘race’ to discuss issues of inequality or racism, but this does not negate the fact that clear-cut and indisputable racial categories are a convenient fiction.

4. I think that the twenty-year old survey cited in Lieberman et al. (under the heading “The current disagreement across disciplines”) is hopelessly out of date, and even during its time, the negative formulation of the question can lead to confusion of responses. At the least, I think reference to it should be removed. More pointedly, I think that it should be replaced by a more accurate representation of current scholarship (which has been leaning away from ‘race’ as a valid category for awhile now). I will try and provide citation for this in the near future, but one might, for example, take into consideration the 2004 Nature supplement on “Genetics for the Human Race”Nature. On a related point, much of this article seems to suggest that “hard” scientists still respect the concept of ‘race’ while “soft” (read social) scientists may or may not agree with it; I do not think this accurately represents the opinions of the scientific community. More on this to come. (--Ove 19:13, 28 August 2005


 * Thank you for contributing. It would be helpful if you could sign up for a user name. The process is relatively painless. This will help us communicate with you. Once you've done that, it's also standard practice to "sign" all of one's comments. There is a button (second from the right) above the edit text box which will automatically insert a code that will be substituded for your signature. Also, thank you for numbering your comments. This isn't always done but it is very helpful. --Rikurzhen 18:16, August 28, 2005 (UTC)


 * Quick responses --


 * 1. in some deep corner of WP style guide (that i can't find right now) is the request to not start articles with "x is a term which describes y" because arguably all articles would have to start with that formulation. that is the reason why this article has not chosen that form.


 * 2. if those articles can be reincorported into this article or refreshed in such a way as to bring them up to a more useful standard, that would be great. i started contemporary views on race as a Q&A-form article to distill information into a easy to read form but haven't had occasion to finish it.


 * 3. those are separate but related questions. i hadn't thought they were inappropraitely mixed, but let's look at that.


 * 4. be careful about applying indiviudal intuition when making editorial judgments. in my experience with the literature on this topic, terminological differences are a significant source of appearance of disagreement about this topic. this is one of the reasons why this article beings with a distillation of various definitions of "race". for the sake of thinking about this topic, it may be sufficent just to consider two different means of the word: (A) a particular category/taxonomic system (e.g. the 19th century negroid-caucasoid-mongoloid or the US OMB census categories) that's predicated on a mix of social and biological markers; and (B) a set of related category schemes that divide humans into arbitrarily many populations on the basis of geographical ancestry. Typically (A) is the sort of thing being referred to in claims against "race" and (B) is the sort of thing being referred to in claims in favor of "race". Sometimes the same individual is make both claims in the same paper (see the commentary from Bamshad in the latest issue of JAMA). prior discussion about the Lieberman et al survey has been that it helps more than it hurts by demonstrating that just talking about "race" without the qualification of a definition will give very different results depending on who you ask. --Rikurzhen 19:45, August 28, 2005 (UTC)


 * 1. Two points. a) After seeing may more Wikipedia articles, I think it is definitely appropriate to change the wording as I have suggested. Many other articles use the same or similar style, especially articles that deal with controversial topics (see for example Caucasian race, negroid, caucasoid, global warming, Third World, gender, etc.). b) I cannot find any Wikipedia style policy that prohibits this usage.
 * 2. Agreed. I do not have time right now either.
 * 3. They are inappropriately mixed because there is controversy over the scientific validity of racial groups/classification but there is no real controversy over the fact that 'race' has real consequence. This is related to the fact that one can study 'race' without believing in its biological validity.
 * 4. Still no time to look up citations, but I have a few comments.. a) I admit I was hasty to advocate the removal of the Lieberman et al. study, but I do think that a more recent survey, if available, could be used to supplement the section. This said, I also think that Lieberman et al.’s intent with their study is not reflected here. Comparing the use of Lieberman et al. in the article to an extract from the abstract (see below), it is not their intent to show that many scientists agree with the concept of ‘race’ as such, but to show how many scientists fail to take into account the problematic nature of the concept. This emphasis does not come through in the article.
 * “We propose continued use of the concept for some infrahuman species, while abandoning its application to Homo sapiens. For those biologists and anthropologists who continue to use the concept, scientific accuracy can be achieved by the presentation in lecture and text of the following ideas: first, consensus among scientists on the race concept's utility and accuracy does not exist; second, there is more variation within than between so-called races; third, discordant gradations due to natural selection, drift, and interbreeding make consistent racial boundary lines impossible to identify; fourth, past use of the race concept has had harmful consequences; fifth, the most precise study of human hereditary variation maps one trait at a time; and sixth, racial labels are misleading, especially as most populations have a cultural designation.”
 * b) I think the terminological issue you raise is important (although I am not certain your examples are totally unrelated as the term ‘race’ cannot, in any context, be removed from its politically-charged connotations). I think this issue, however, highlights my point about the inferences of the article (which seems to automatically validate some positions while relegating other to controversy – as if the whole thing were not controversial). Consequently, I would argue that the controversy of ‘race’ itself, and not any of its potential or assumed biological usages, should be the main focus of this article (back to point 1). The potential of ‘race’ as a valid type of scientific classification should be debated after a discussion of its historical and contemporary usage (and effects) in folk taxonomy(ies) - because ‘race’ is indisputably a folk taxonomy but a debatable scientific classification (inasmuch as scientific classification is not itself a type of folk taxonomy). I realize that I have not yet suggested how this could be accomplished, but it would definitely entail combining the sub-articles about race (or relegating the biological debate to its own sub-article). Thoughts?--Ove 22:24, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research
There is a new review paper in Am. J. Hum. Genet. about race and genetics research. Of particular note is the copyright: This article is in the public domain, and no copyright is claimed. Here's the full text from the publisher's web site. If that's not publically available, I'll post it in my user space. --Rikurzhen 08:04, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

User:Rikurzhen/NHGRI-race-review-2005 --Rikurzhen 18:52, August 30, 2005 (UTC)


 * I've copied the relevant material from this public domain text into the article. We should merge it with the existing text. Overall, this should be fairly easy, as the sections mostly match. --Rikurzhen 09:12, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


 * A little harder than I thought: I've moved that project to User:Rikurzhen/race --Rikurzhen 04:11, 18 September 2005 (UTC)


 * And so if anyone wants to help, please join in. --Rikurzhen 17:49, 19 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Finished with the rough work, I moved the text back to the main article. --Rikurzhen 06:41, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

political
This may be a featured article, but it worries me because of its failure previously to have emphasised the political, rather than scientific, nature of the concept up front. There is a massive, and continuously expanding, amount of evidence from population genetic research that shows this. [For example, Cavallli-Sforza, who initiated the Human Genome Diversity Project, has published many scientific papers in this area, while popular books such his Genes, Peoples and Languages, and Steve Olsen's Mapping Human History, present many of the relevant data and ideas in popular form.] mitchellanderson


 * Cavalli-Sforza, more than any other scientist in the 20th century, established that human races are biological and not political. Cavalli-Sforza published some political statements to the opposite effect, but his political statements, as much as anyone else's, are irrelevant to the scientific implications of his work. --hitssquad 05:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)


 * mitchellanderson, by virtue of the fact that this is a featured article, you must realize that it has undergone intense scrutiny in the past. the claims you've introduced wrt "race" being a poltical rather than scientific term are written in a way that they violate WP:NPOV, a fact which at least one editor tried to correct. clearly your claim is controversial and thus it cannot be stated as an unattributed matter of fact. please correct this. --Rikurzhen 05:46, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Dear amateurs - I'm afraid that this only goes to show how little you know: "my" claim is only controversial in the sense that the world being round is controversial; not everyone would agree, although anyone who understands the relevant concepts would. An outline of the arguments was contained in my amended intro, actually, and I simply cited Cavallli-Sforzan as one of many genetics who have published evidence for this. On the converse, there are no studies that indicate some human group is completely seperable from others, genetically (although there are clearly plenty of non-scientists, including people with various kinds of prejudice, who believe this); there is always far more genetic overlap than difference. [And humans are not separable from other forms of life, although they are of course a distinct species.] If you want to see the data for all of this, then I could suggest you type relevant terms into PubMed and retrieve relevant recent papers published in decent journals (Science, Nature, nature Genetics, AM J Hum Genetics, etc.). I know that WP isn't a science text, and I'm learning that that's part of the fun... I won't bother reverting your b******t. Best wishes, mitchellanderson

Don't respond. --Rikurzhen 02:02, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

See this link for the proof--68.216.187.22 22:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Microcephalin and ASPM
Yikes, what a powder keg:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/science/08cnd-brain.html JDG 21:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)


 * It's definitely a refutation of Gould wrt there being enough time for selection to affect populations since the emergence of modern humans. --Rikurzhen 00:46, September 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * That's been one of my major problems with Gould for years. How in tarnation could he make such excellent arguments for Punctuated Equilibrium and then deny that anything of real biological significance could have happened in the 80,000+ years since the Out-of-Africa march started? I firmly believe in the stop-and-start model of evolution. I also firmly believe many changes, some of them significant from a mental-performance standpoint, arose between major populations in these years. Finally, I firmly believe that, in sum, no population is superior to any other. There may be subcategories of performance for which we need to find delicate ways of saying "Group B is superior to Groups A and C". But overall I really feel it evens out... Anyway, that's a load of opinion. I'm hoping to work a little on Race in the coming weeks. Do you think material on Microencephalin/ASPM would be better as a sub-article? JDG 04:03, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Until the phenotypic effect of these alleles is determined, this is probably too low profile for the main article. But if you start a sub-article, it could grow as new data is accumluated. --Rikurzhen 04:20, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

to do
i've given the interested editor a lot to work with. see the to do list. --Rikurzhen 06:44, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I have been having a terrible time getting on Wikipedia lately to make edits, so I am taking a short breather till they get the hardware or traffic issues or whatever it is settled. Jokestress 07:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * It's been a pain. I copied the text off line to edit it. I've got a conference this week/end and won't have much more to add. --Rikurzhen 08:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

contribution by 143.109.91.61
maybe useful, but not appropriate for the intro: --Rikurzhen 16:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

There are two main approaches scientists have taken on human biological variation in the past. The first is racial classification, and the second focuses on understanding specific differences. The study of racial classification has been rejected and scientists are currently approaching an explanation using the second method. Some biologists use race to refer to breeds, like in dogs and roses. The human population has not been isolated from each other enough, to develop races. Humans vary biologically in genetic attributes but there are no sharp breaks in humans that we associate with a subspecies. Racial classification fell out of biological favor for many reasons. Though it is mainly because scientists have trouble grouping people into distinct racial units. A race is supposed to reflect shared genetic material. However, early scholars used phenotypical traits for racial classification. There are many problems to this approach. The first being, which traits do we use for racial classification, height, weight, body shape, skull form, skin color? Genetic variations were not used in early racial classifications. There are many problems with the methods used to separate races. The biggest being, if we are going to determine race using phenotypical traits, why skin color? Why not other features easily separated within individuals? While we name races by skin color, we do not even name them well. How many truly white, yellow or black people have you actually seen?

anon left this essay
We have not always had race. The ancient world, for example, had no conception of it. The first systematic racial classification was that advanced by Johan Freidrich Bloomenbach in 1775. He argued that there were five basic racial divisions... Caucasian Mongolian Ethiopian American and Malay.

Racism as we know it had it's origins in early 17th and 18th century European thought. Race was a classification system invented by europeans which served to press primarily political aims or claims of groups within european countries then to represent the relationships between these groups, rather, between these countries and finally to govern the relations outside Europe. Europe was composed of peoples who had come from different regions and frequently the lines of political tensions coincided to those origins so that evidence about different customs of the original groups could be used in political argument. Prior to the 18th century there was no conception of race as a physical concept, although there certainly was the basic idea grounded in the European thought that black was the color of sin and death. It was not until the 19th century that individuals came to be described as belonging to races and to maintain that differences between people stem from race. The English came to use the word race to denote divisions of mankind who were distinguished simultaneously as social as well as biological units american attitudes about race were derived from the same traditions, arguments and books as the English.

In 1853 Count Arthur de Gobineau published his full volume work 'Essay on the Inequality of human races' Note:('Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines' - an early classic on the supremacy of the Nordic-Aryan race)" which became a standard work for race theories in history. No one before Gobineau had attempted to argue that there was a single reason, one single force, according to which civilization always and everywhere rises and falls.  Gobineau further argued that the fallof civilation was due to a degeneration of race and that the decay of race was due to a mixture of blood.  This line of thinking evolved ultimately into the notion of the survival of the fittest.  What Gobineau was seeking, however, was a political means of creating an elite to replace the dying aristocracy. Instead of princes, he substituted a race of princes, the Aryans, who were in danger of being submerged by the non-Aryan lower-classes through democracy. The concept of race made it possible to organize the "innig" personalities of German romanticism, to define them as members of a natural aristocracy, destined to rule over all others. In England, therefore, race thinking and class thinking combined in a curious marriage. The concept of inheritance applied to the very nature of liberty became the idealogical basis from which english nationalism received its curious touch of 'race feeling'. This signified the acceptance of the feudal concept of liberty as the sum total of priveleges inherited together with title and land. 'The English frame of race thinking was almost obsessed with inheritace theories and their modern equivilant, eugenics". Now, several racism documents emerged during the 18oo's in England and America.  The first of the more important was the theory of polygenism which dominated English and American view of race between 1850 and 1859.  This theory held that there were distinct races of human being and that these races, in fact, represented separate and distinct species.  This conception of the origin of the races was invoked to justify slavery and reinforce oppression against africans and others of so-called mixed origin.  This view was eventually supplanted in popular opinion by darwinism which arrived at the opposite but far more convincing conclusion.  Darwinism deriving also from the priniple of inheritance held that man is not related only to man but to animal life and that the existence of lower races shows clearly that gradual differences alone separate man from beast and that a powerful struggle for existence dominates all living things.

Further, racial orders have varied significantly within modernity. Race in the United States differs from race in Europe because the origins of each system are different, as are the uses toward which race is put. This is true even though both systems are based on white dominance and Black subordination. The European concept of race grew out of colonialism. As Hannah Arendt notes, European racism has served as a bridge connecting nationalism and imperialism, two ideologies that are otherwise internally contradictory. By justifying imperial expansion throughout the globe, it calms the grumbling of the domestic poor with spoils won through imperialist enterprises and assurances of racial superiority over the colonized. Race in the United States, however, is rooted in the institution of chattel slavery. As a result, except for the partial exception of the reservation system for Native Americans, American race has distinguished between equals and unequals within the polity rather than between nation and colony.

One reaction to the realization that race has no biological basis is to proclaim that we should all give up this harmful superstition immediately. The American Anthropological Association, for example, declared in 1997 that the government should eliminate the term "race," replace it with "ethnicity" and let people define their own ethnicity.

The term "race" is used to describe so much in terms of biology, behavior, culture, and social structure that it often seems useless in its ubiquity. Explaining what race is not before delving into a political definition of race reduces the confusion surrounding these multiple and conflicting usages. It also reveals how most usages tend to depoliticize our understanding of race.

Detail level of 'Physical Variation in Humans'
Is the detail of this section of appropriate amount? My personal main interest of reading about 'race' is to learn about physical adaptations of humans that have occured in various enviornments, and I'd guess that many others feel the same way, though I could be wrong. But if I properly read the section, I see skin colour being the only real subject, and answers no questions to the wonders of a differing body build in very cold climates, for example. (Or skills in living in steep places, like in Nepal. Or different blood chemistry of generations that have lived in high altitude. Etc....) Peoplesunionpro 02:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)


 * That would make a nice addition. (Note that section was recently added.) There's also an article on Human variability. --Rikurzhen 03:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)


 * an article in The Scientist on this topic --Rikurzhen 08:28, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Image addition
I just took this from the intro materials:



I have moved this here for discussion, both as a possible copyvio and because it needs a citation and a typo fixed prior to inclusion. Jokestress 23:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * These pictures also reflect a classification of races that most evolutionary scientists reject. At best, they represent a view that was popular through mid-twentieth-century, though even then losing scholarly support.  To put this even close to the beginning of the article is to take a huge step backwards. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

LMAO, that picture is hilarious. -Lengis

Question about races in relation to breeds
Are human races similar to how dogs or cats have numerous breeds? I believe this is true because breeds are just subspecies that are physically different, but can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Exactly the same as Human races.
 * For you to ask this question simply reveals that you did not read (or did not understand) the article, and my first answer is: read the article. However, if you do not want to take the time to read an article, I will save you some time: No this is not at all the same.  Breeds are created by breeders.  Genetic differences among humans is primarily the result of geographical distance, not the intentions or interference of a breeder.  Moreover, different dog breeds are far more different from one another than human populations. Retrievers and sheepdogs have very different instinctive behaviors.  By way of analogy, blacks and whites can be equally good trackers or collectors, and equally protective of their charges.  That is, human populations show much, much more plasticity concerning behavior than dog breeds. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * No, actually that is not correct. You can not create a new breed, unless two dogs were different in the first place.  And they are different in the first place because of the result of geographical distance.  Your example of dog breeds being far more different from one another is also a poor one.  Using the word "different" all by itself is an ambiguous statement, which is subject to a point of view.  For example you could compare a negro with a east asian, and determine that a negro is physically different.  Negros are typically taller, have broad noses, fuller lips, darker skin and thick curly hair.  As for your "they have to be breed together" argument.  You should be aware that it's possible to breed a negro with an east asian and get a cross breed between the two.  Ofcourse no one forces two to do so, but is done through mutual love and affection.  As for instinctive behaviors, there is no area of science that will classify animals based on behavior.  By that logic, a sloth is the same as a turtle since they both barely move.  Additionally, humans are self aware, and are sentient.  Thus their behavior is determined by what they learn, rather than instinct, as opposed to other animals which are not sentient.  For example, if a new species of human evolved from homo sapien, it would still be a different species, but it's behavior would be determined by what it learns rather than it's instinct because it's self aware, and sentient.  All classification is done solely on physical differences.  That is all.  For you to give that response simply reveals that you did not read (or did not understand) the article, and my second answer is: read the article.


 * I just learned that Slrubenstien is biased in his views on humans in comparison to other animals because of his religious views. I ask for anyone from a neutral point of view to add meaningful facts to the discussion rather than childish personal opinions.

Are human races similar to how dogs or cats have numerous breeds? -- that depends on your understanding of what a "breed" is. if by breed you mean a kind defined by certain essential properties (e.g. the AKA definitions of dog breeds), then human races are not like that. if by breeds you mean party-inbred populations within a species that share more recent common ancestry, then human races are something like that. --Rikurzhen 09:19, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

"if by breed you mean a kind defined by certain essential properties (e.g. the AKA definitions of dog breeds), then human races are not like that." -- I challenge that statement. Offer facts and sources to back that statement up.

It has also come to my attention that there is a type of human called the African pygmy that genetically does not recieve a growth spurt durring their teens. This represents a clear distinction from other humans. I wish for more discussion and facts be brought to this discussion. I do not believe the notion that human beings are the only animal that possess this classification of "races".


 * Essential properties are not the kinds of things that evolution is thought to create. If your definition of African pygmy includes the necessary condition "no teenage growth spurt" but there is at least one person who was born to two pygmy parents but does have a growth spurt, then by your definition that person would not be a pygmy. Populationist thinking is now the mainstream view as it can accomodate variation both within and between groups. --Rikurzhen 20:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


 * In pure African pygmys there are no teenage growth spurts. At all.  If a pygmy were to breed with a caucasian however, then there would be a cross breed which would possess traits from both parents.  This is exactly the same as cross breeding between different dog or cat breeds.  As for your claim about "essential properties", you are going to have to clarify what you mean by "essential properties" in the first place.  There is no wikipedia entry that even mentions that term.  Like I said, I do not believe humans are the only animal that possess the classification of "races", and that the word "races" is actually in line with the classification "breed".


 * See Race and Essentialism. Assuming that "no growth spurt" is a derived rather than ancestral trait for humans, then there must have been a person who is the ancestor of living pygmys who did have a growth spurt. Even if the genetic potential for a growth spurt no longer exists in modern pygmy population, a set of fortunate mutations or pharamectual interventions could likely rescue the growth spurt phenotype; thus producing a pygmy with a growth spurt. Exceptions are almost always found in biology. --Rikurzhen 20:26, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Sure a set of fortunate mutations could likely cause a growth spurt. But it's also possible that a set of fortunate mutations could cause a Horse to have stripes like a Zebra.  What's your point?  I'm not sure where you were going with that.  The fact of the matter is, there is a clear distinction between African Pygmys, caucasians, negros, etc.  The link you provided does not support your arguments, and you did not clarify "essential properties" which was supposed to be the core of your argument.  Please address the relevant points at hand.


 * Foremost, the talk page is for discussing the article; it is not a general discussion forum. If a horse had stripes, it would still be a horse and not a zebra. If a pygmy had a growth spurt, s/he would still be a pygmy, and not something else. This demonstrates that any particular phenotypic trait is neither necessary nor sufficient for group membership. This, along with other data, is what motivates non-essentialist defintiions of race as well as the claims that race does not exist at all. --Rikurzhen 22:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Foremost, this section of the talk page is for discussing the issue at hand, not irrelevant information that doesn't address what is being discussed. If a horse had stripes, it would be described as a horse with stripes.  If a pygmy had a growth spurt he is described as a tall pygmy.  But, this is only the case if the occurrence was minor, and never succeeds on it's own.  If the new mutated trait becomes more and more common ,is successful, and flurishes (natural selection), then yes it establishes itself as a new breed.  That's how evolution works.

Back to the original question: "Are human races similar to how dogs or cats have numerous breeds?" I'll talk about pigeons instead. To create the breed called homing pigeons you start with ordinary pigeons, the kind that nest on widowsills and under eaves in big cities, barns in the country, etc. You give a bunch of them a nice coop to live in, get them to accept it as their home, let them out to fly for exercise and keep the ones who come back. Then you capture some more pigeons to replace the ones that didn't come back. You take the ones that come back and carry them a few miles away, release them, and wait to see which ones come back. You keep the ones that come back, add more wild birds until you build up enough breeding pairs that will come back regularly, and meanwhile you take birds farther and farther away. Eventually you get birds that will fairly reliably return from hundreds of miles away. Ordinarily, humans do not select mates and cull offspring hoping to produce a breed of math geniuses or soccer players.

The "master" can control which pigeons breed with which pigeons fairly reliably. How would one control breeding among humans? I think it would take a totalitarian state using ideology, social pressure, and criminal law to even make a start. Pigeons become sexually mature in a year or so, so the rate of improvement in the new breed of homing pigeons would be fairly rapid. Even so, people are still working on the problem. Humans would have to be bred in large numbers, and the time scale would be immense.

Nature does something similar to the breeding programs that humans indulge in. Isolate humans in a place like Australia for tens of thousands of years and the environment will select for adaptive characteristics. Isolated populations may also be lacking in some characteristics simply because nobody who moved to that isolated place happened to have carried that trait. In some cases, a new trait can emerge because a positive mutation has occurred. If the Australians had a useful mutation it might not have gotten back out into the mainstream until Western explorers reconnected Australia to the outside world, but it eventually would spread to wherever it is advantageous.

The difference between human differentiations and the kind of differences seen among various breeds of domestic animals is that human variations are free to spread. Their spread is not instantaneous, but the rate of spread has increased greatly in the last few hundred years. P0M 00:46, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * So according to your statements, ALL breeds were the result of human intervention? How was the Dalmation first created?  Humans were responsible for it's creation?  What about the Bulldog?  That was created by human intervention too?  According to your logic, only one breed of dog had to have existed before humans intervened, because apparently that's the definition.  New types created through human intervention.  But then that means at one time there was only one breed of dog in the entire world.  How do you create a new breed when you breed two dogs of the exact same breed?  You can't.  So that notion that all breeds are the result of human intervention is false.  Different breeds of dogs exist because they evolved different physical traits due to their geographical location.  Exactly the same as human races.  Yes, you can cross breed two different breeds and get a cross breed.  But a black male can breed with a white female and create a cross breed too.  So far, no one has given facts to explain how "breeds" are different from "races".  Again, I have to emphasize the point, that it is not true for ONLY humans to possess this unique classification of "race".


 * See http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/science/21dog.html?ex=1400472000&en=6b49c839cde80d81&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND


 * Humans probably started with what they found at hand. Dogs would have diverged for the same reasons that humans diverged. Northern dogs needed heavy coats, etc.


 * No "breeds" of dogs existed before humans started breeding dogs. Differences existed and humans selected for the characteristics they wanted. As for which breeds came first, you are in luck. Researchers have recently been working out the genetic heritage of various breeds, and tracing them back to wherever they got started. There is, by the way, a debate going on concerning whether our domestic species is closer to some of the wild dogs (in Australia, I think it was) or to wolves.


 * "Different breeds of dogs exist because they evolved different physical traits due to their geographical location." -- That's approximately correct, and in line with what I said immediately above. The problem is just one of vocabulary. The differences may not have been great enough that we could call them subspecies. There probably was no sharp line of demarcation between areas that had the various varieties of dogs.  They probably shaded off the one into the other. (Just think of how often very large dogs are reported to have successfully bred with much smaller dogs. Hardly anything will discourage them.)


 * "Exactly the same as human races." Again, I would only argue with the terminology. The differentiation of dogs or their ancestors before contact with humans would indeed have been a close parallel to the differentiation of human beings. Did you check the article on subspecies? The professional spider people I correspond with don't think there really are differences among species of spiders that are that sharp.


 * If you look at the average guy from Malawi and the average guy from Norway, you will conclude that they are quite different. But if you walk from Norway to Malawi you won't find virtually pigmentless skin on one side of some line and black so black that you can't distinguish the pupil of the eye from the iris of the eye on the other side of the line.  You will find a gradual transition from one color to the other.  So if the Norwegians are of one race and the Malawians are of another race, what are the people of the color that splits the difference?


 * "Again, I have to emphasize the point, that it is not true for ONLY humans to possess this unique classification of 'race'." When biologists talk about "race" they equate it to "subspecies." But if we accept what I regard as the sloppy definition of the term used in writing the article on "race," and if we look at some kind of animal that has not been systematically bred to look cute or bite enthusiastically, they I can very easily agree with you. (This article, by the way, has evolved to the point that it only talks about human races.) Right now I am having trouble thinking of a species of animal that is found all the way around the world, that is differentiated by ecosystem, and is not domesticated. One of the reasons that humans and pigeons don't have subspecies is that they both get around really easily and so don't spread their genes around the world wherever they travel. And animals that don't travel well tend to stick in one place and gradually evolve to the point that they can no longer interbreed, so they become distinct species. Wolves in the U.S. might be a suitable example. There has been great interest expressed in maintaining the purity of the wolves that live along the east coast of the N. American continent, unwillingness to import western wolves to augment populations, so what we have would appear to be "races" of wolves. They are different enough in appearance that (I would suspect) experts can tell which is which just by looking at them, but they are capable of interbreeding -- otherwise there wouldn't be any problem of loss of genetic individuality were western wolves to be moved east to boost populations or whatever. In this century there is no hybridization zone, but presumably before the white guys hit this continent and started building highways and killing wolves there would have been no place completely free of wolves between New York and San Francisco. So, since they can breed perfectly well (heck, they can even breed with dogs), I think in the old days the wolf "races" would have mirrored what happens with the human "races."  Probably there is a better example, but I can't think of one. Maybe red squirrels and grey squirrels are of the same species.  I'll have to check on that.  Except for color, they sure look alike.P0M 03:09, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I thought of an example. The Alaska brown bear and the Grizzly bear are the same species, Ursus arctos, but they differ in size and color in different places. Ursus arctos exist in N. America and in Eurasia. So they are a pretty good "model" for human diversity. Then there is the Kodiak Brown Bear, which has been isolated on the Kodiak Islands and is the largest of all the Ursus arctos. It is considered a subspecies. See:
 * http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Ursus_arctos.html
 * So biologists would call the Kodiak bears a separate "race" or subspecies, but the way we are using "race" here, the Alaska Brown Bear and the Grizzly Bear are different races. The differences among the varieties of Ursus arctos seem to be color and size. If it weren't for the barrier formed by sea water, there wouldn't be a Kodiak bear because they would have been able to mate with Brown bears in surrounding territories. Just to round out the picture, the black bears are a different species from the brown bears. So we are all like brown bears and maybe the Neanderthals are like black bears.P0M

I am curious to know what the anonymous commenter believes is my religious bias and how it has influenced by answer to his/her question. I think the anonymous commenter is simply making an ignorant ad hominem remark. In any event, as POM has made amply clear, the anonymous commenter simply does not understand biology or the theory of evolution. Of course all life manifests itself in varied forms. Nevertheless, a breed is something that is bred. The mechanisms that produce similar groups of dogs and similar groups of humans are quite different. This is not a matter of religion, it is a matter of science, which the anonymous editor does not understand. What we have here are several different vocabularies, some of which are appropriate to specific situations, and attempts to apply them to other situations to which they simply are not appropriate. Slrubenstein  &#124;  &#91;&#91;User talk:Slrubenstein&#124;Talk]] 07:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually slrubenston, P0M was reinforceing my point. If you actually read what he said, you would have realized that.  Like he pointed out, brown bears are similar to the species "homo sapian".  Grizzly bears, alaskan brown bears, and kodiak bears are similar to human races like "caucasians" or "negroes". Additionally the black bear correlation is that it's similar to the "Neanderthal's" relationship to us.  With this in mind, it makes sense.  A grizzly can breed with a kodiak, and produce fertile offspring.  Similar to how a caucasian can breed with a negro and produce fertile offspring.  However a black bear can not breed with a grizzly and produce fertile offspring.  Similar to how a homo sapian can not breed with a Neanderthal (if it were alive today), and produce fertile offspring.  Unfortuntly that seemed to go right over your head.  Please read before making comments you are ignorant on.  In any event, the point stands that "race" and "breeds" are synonymous.  Whether you force them to breed through human intervention, or if they breed because of mutual love and affection, biologically speaking, the result is the same.

Example 1 Say I'm a slave owner. I could take a negro and a caucasian and force them to breed with each other. Thus, we have a fertile crossbreed between the two because of my intervention.

On the other hand, that negro and that caucasian could breed together because of mutual love and affection. However that crossbreed that is born is exactly the same, in terms of scientific classification, as the crossbreed produced from the first instance.

Although the methods to produce the crossbreeds are different, there is no distinction biologically speaking.

Example 2 Say I'm a dog owner. I could take a bulldog and a dalmation and force them to breed with each other. Thus, we have a fertile crossbreed between the two because of my intervention.

On the other hand, that bulldog and that dalmation could breed together because of mutual lust and attraction. However that crossbreed that is born is exactly the same, in terms of scientific classification, as the crossbreed produced from the first instance.

No where in the scientific classification system do they differentiate due to social standards, human intervention, or political reasons. Unfortuntly, I believe people make the distinction that human races are different simply because it's "politically correct". However this makes for poor science, and is not factually acurate. If it is true that the word, "Breed" is simply a word that indicates that the offspring is created because of forced reproduction, then then word "Breed" is a junk statement that has no relevance in the scientific classification. Race and Breed, biologically speaking, are the same thing.


 * Not only do you not know what you are talking about scientifically, you misread POM's point. POM was equating races to subspecies (something that some but not all evolutionary scientists believe, and something that is expressed already in the article).  POM was not equating races to breeds.  "Breed" and "subspecies" do not mean the same thing.  One can argue that races are subspecies (like I said, the article already covers this).  Races are most definitely not like breeds, though. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The term "race" has lots of different definitions. Some biologists use it as a synonym for subspecies. Outside of biology the term has many different definitions, among them, it would seem, is a definition of a "race" as a kind of sub-subspecies. P0M


 * I agree with Slrubenstein. In addition, it may be helpful to note that you are looking from the wrong end of the telescope.


 * The overwhelming tendency of males and females who can get it together at all is to breed. Wolves and dogs will cross species "barriers" to mate, and they can even produce fertile offspring. Dogs and dogs will breed despite great difficulties and regard any differences as challenges not as turn-offs.  Left to themselves, dogs would all be mixes in a few generations. We saw what happened when a single colony of African bees got loose in South America. They had no reticence to breed with the local bees.


 * The differenting factors at work when breeds are produced and when sub-subspecies are produced are very different, however. If dogs were isolated on Antarctica for thousands of years, the ones with good thick coats, fur that grows down between the pads on their feet (so that they end up walking on an insulating pad of fur), and the ones with compact body types would tend to live and reproduce. The hairless types would not make it, the ones with long, stringy body types would not thrive, etc.  If that type of dog ended up in the Sahara, however, it would not do well. The long, rangy types could shed heat readily. The dogs that could maintain enough coat to protect themselves from the sun without causing them to cook in their own skins, would survive, etc. That's the way natural variations are produced. If things go on for long enough, individuals in each of several regions become identifiable by general appearance, and people begin to speak of subspecies. If animals are separated for thousands of years they may endure changes that make sexual intercourse problematical and the two groups tend to grow farther and farther apart and become species.


 * With breeds, however, the predominant differentiating forces are human choices. Nature would probably never come up with some of the weird combinations of characteristics that human favor because "features" of some breeds, such as hip dysplasia, are detrimental to the survival of the individual and the group.


 * So the two ways of differentiation are different. The processes of nature lead to selections of characteristics that are appropriate to the various environments in the world. The process of selection goes on generation after generation and gradually people in remote regions start having characteristics that are different that we might speak of them as belong to sub-subspecies or races (or, to use the terminology of those who equate "race" with "subspecies", they could be called sub-races). If the groups are physically isolated (an impossibility for humans in the last several hundred years), then after (probably) hundreds of thousands of years the differences would reach the subspecies level.


 * The preferences of humans lead to selections of characteristics that define breeds. There can be an immense number of different breeds within the limits of a single city, and the integrity or purity of the breeds is maintained by the ways people have employed to keep dogs from breeding across breed lines.


 * Occasionally some groups of people attempt to maintain the genetic purity of their groups for various reasons. Recent studies of the genetic characteristics of human beings indicate that they don't do a very good job of "breeding" themselves. P0M 00:12, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I will repeat myself one more time.


 * "No where in the scientific classification system do they differentiate due to social standards, human intervention, or political reasons. Unfortuntly, I believe people make the distinction that human races are different simply because it's "politically correct". However this makes for poor science, and is not factually acurate. If it is true that the word, "Breed" is simply a word that indicates that the offspring is created because of forced reproduction, then then word "Breed" is a junk statement that has no relevance in the scientific classification. Race and Breed, biologically speaking, are the same thing."

I am not sure who is "talking" above. Are you the same unsigned user who started the question on breeding? Or are you someone else who has not followed the discussion?

"Breed" is not a term that is appropriate to the part of biology where they discuss Order, Genus, species, etc. "Breed" is relevant to biology, but only in the sense that humans have learned to selectively breed creatures to get the kind of characteristics that humans want. It does not belong in with the natural processes that produce genera, species, etc. So in that sense, you are perfectly right that "breed" has no relevance to scientific classification. The most typical people in Malawi do not belong to a "breed," nor do the Ainu people who live alongside the Japanese in Hokkaido, nor do the Swedes. Not only are individuals of those groups not members of different "breeds" (thank goodness humans have not even tried to sink to the level of breeding breeds of humans very often), they are not members of different subspecies. The genus designation for you and I is Homo, the species designation for every single human is sapiens, and the subspecies designation for all of us is sapiens, so the whole scientific classification is Homo sapiens sapiens. If Homo sapiens sapiens breaks down into smaller subdivisions, Asians, Africans, or whatever, those subdivisions would have to be called "sub-subspecies" or something like that. People who classify creatures like spiders (creatures that unlike humans don't go flying all over the world all the time and exchanging genetic material in almost that widespread a way) don't even have patience with the subspecies designation, claiming that most of the time the individuals refuse to conform to the scheme of categorization and it is more trouble than it is worth to try to figure out what some spider might "really" be. Humans have even less consistency in genetic makeup, yet for some perverse reason we insist on trying to divide them into sub-subspecies groups. Some people seem to call these sub-subspecies groups races. But humans are Ivory Soap pure cases of natural selection and eugenics-be-damned xenophilia, so none of the "races" are "pure." P0M 01:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is true the word "breed", has no relevance within the scientific classificaiton, yet that is the only way we subdivide the obvious subspecies of dogs. The dalamtion was NEVER a result of selective breeding.  The bulldog was NEVER a result of selective breeding.  They look different as a result of their respective geological location, through natural selection and evolution.  But yet we refer to them as "breed", which in your definition means being bred through human interference.  Thus we can either conclude, your definition of "breed" is incorrect, or the word "breed" is a faulty term to begin with.


 * Additionally, you would be a fool if you thought all humans have no differences between each other. There ARE fundamental differences (however slight), between say a Japanese man, and a Caucasian.  No race is pure, but a race doesn't have to be pure to be classified.  The races are divided ASSUMING the blood is pure.  A negro is defined as such, assuming he has 100% negro blood.  But realistically, he doesn't have to have full 100% negro blood to identify himself as such.  This is the reality.


 * I don't have any particular problem with the word "breed". It's just a terminological issue. Whatever word we use the problem is the usefulness of the classifications we adopt, and what they reveal - about history and about actual biology. But I do think that talking about pure "negro blood" is, to say the least, unhelpful. How might we determine the "purity" of an individual without having arbitrary rules to determine the very racial categories that constitute the distinction between "purity" and "mixedness" in the first place. Paul B 18:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

"Race" in the United States
Original paragraph:

In the United States since its early history, Native Americans, African-Americans and European-Americans were classified as belonging to different races. But the criteria for membership in these races were radically different. The government considered anyone with "one drop" of "Black blood" (or indigenous African ancestry) to be Black. In contrast, Indians were defined by a certain percentage of "Indian blood" due in large part to American slavery ethics. To be White, one had to have "pure" White ancestry. These differing criteria for assignation of membership to particular races had relatively little to do with biology and far more to do with White supremacy&mdash;the social, geopolitical and economic agendas of dominant Whites vis-à-vis subordinate Blacks and Native Americans&mdash;and racism. At the time, Blacks were valuable commodities as slaves; and Native Americans, whose vast lands were the ultimate target of acquisition in a doctrine of Manifest Destiny, were subject to marginalization and multiple episodic localized campaigns of extermination.

Comments:

1. That “the government” (the king? the colonial planter gentry?) enforced a one-drop rule in the early colonial period is in error. As explained in the Wikipedia article on the one-drop rule, the notion of invisible blackness dates from the early 20th century.

2. The last two sentences of the original paragraph could possibly be salvaged by rewording them thus: “Before the Civil War, Blacks were valuable commodities as slaves. After the Civil War, Native Americans, whose vast lands were the ultimate target of acquisition in a doctrine of Manifest Destiny, were subject to marginalization and multiple episodic localized campaigns of extermination.” But this would make the two sentences irrelevant to the topic at hand (the determination of people’s “racial identity”).

FrankWSweet 15:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * These are interesting comments. I may have written the original version of this paragraph but have not followed it and it seems to me that someone at some point made changes that are unsupportable.  The point about one-drop for Blacks and blood-quanta for Indians is this: the one-drop of blood rule expanded the black population, a source of labor either as slaves or share-croppers.  The blood-quanta rule shrank the Indian population, freeing up land they occupied.  The general point is that different ways of constructing race had to do with different forms of subordination.  Are we on the same page? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:20, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * We are definitely on the same page. The only problem I had was the timing of the two phenomena. The ODR spead to the South only after the Civil War and then thoughout the nation (and was made statutory) in the 1910-1930 period. Hence, it could not have been related to slavery. Your thought that the ODR was designed to expand the population of share-cropping laborers is a hypothesis that I respect (and discuss in chapter 21 of my book, Legal History of the Color Line). My own thinking, however, is that the ODR was intended to provide an ideological underpinning to the notions White "racial" purity that supported and justified the Jim Crow wave of terror and oppression. I suspect that its swelling of the Southern labor force (which at the time was leaking northwards in the great migration) by shifting the Lower South's color-line darkwards was a felicitous (to the planters) side-effect. In any event, I really would like to see those two sentences put back in, since they are so important. I just could not figure out how to relate them to the notion of ideological Whiteness. Feel free to take a whack at it.FrankWSweet 17:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If we are on the same page, I really encourage you to rewrite the paragraph accordingly. It sounds like you are much more knowledgable on the history -- my only sources are Gerald Sider's Lumbee Indian Histories and an article by Fields on blacks(which I no longer have a copy of in my posession).  Can you take a whack at it?  I see NO connection to ideological whitness, whatever that means, unless it means that compared to blacks and Indians, "white" is, or has been, an unmarked racial category in American culture.  Do you think that is what it means?  I really encourage you to try your hand at incorporating this stuff into the paragraph (or making it clearer) and getting rid of the ideological whiteness. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay. I rewrote the entire argument that the late-19th-century divergence between Indian blood quantum and Black ODR was economically driven. The problem, as I mentioned, is that the argument as originally written bases the economics of the ODR on slavery. But the ODR emerged after slavery was dead (to say nothing of the fact that slave status was strictly matrilineal and was indpendent of "race" other than that biracials were presumed to be free under the law). So I tried to re-cast Sider's argument more in line with my interpretation of Barbara J. Fields's famous essay, "Ideology and Race in American History," in Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (New York: Oxford University, 1982). Specifically, I couched it in terms of sharecropping rather than slavery. This weakens Sider's argument a bit, so I added a comment that other historians do not see the ODR as economically driven.FrankWSweet 21:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I have no objections to your changes &mdash; I am very glad you are on board and look forward to your making other valuable contributions here and elsewhere (e.g. other anthropology and history related pages). I too love the Fields article (I just don't have it on me). If you have not read Sider's book, I urge you to, if only because I think you will enjoy it. Are you familiar with Oliver Sax? I am not, not very, but suspect his views ought to be incorporated. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You must mean Oliver Cromwell Cox, who wrote Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (1948). That might be a good idea. He was Trinidadian, you know. His most interesting writing was a semi-semantic argument with Allison Davis, Burleigh Gardner, and W. Lloyd Warner who wrote Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (1941). The debate was whether the U.S. "race" notion was comparable to the Hindu caste system. To my mind, his greatest contribution was to show that the Hindu system (with which he was intimately familiar since childhood) was unrelated to phenotype, thus making it a poor analogy for the U.S. "race" notion. The bad news is that he insisted that Hindus willingly accept the caste into which they are born (a point that I doubt the Harijans or Achutas would swallow). Let me see if I can come up with a NPOV summary of their debate, since all involved agreed that U.S. "race" (or caste) was independent of class. (In the U.S., in contrast to Latin America, even a Black millionaire is still Black.) FrankWSweet 17:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you are absolutely right (and you can see how long ago it was that I read this stuff). As you probably know, I drew on Harris's Patterns of Race in the Americas for the Brazilian case-study. It sounds to me that in addition to summing up the debate on the relationship between race and class in general &mdash; and in its own section &mdash; perhaps you can provide a third case-study on the Hindu system, not how it is a racial system but to show how other cultures do not use race to classify people, a counter-example. Whatever you think best Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Featured article review of December 8, 2005
There are 18 talk archives (though one is apparently AWOL). Article has been much expanded from this version, overall apparently positive. I note that some section headings are capitalized inappropriately (not proper nouns). The sections "The Social Interpretation of Physical Variation" and "20th- and 21st-Century debates over race" have no content; the sections "Race and intelligence" and "Race in biomedicine" are stubby. Why do we have sections specifically devoted to Brazil and the US, but no other countries? These bits should maybe be spun out to Race in the United States or Racial perceptions in Brazil or something. The "see also" section is too long and unneeded. There are many references (not necessarily a bad thing) -- are they all cited specifically somewhere in the article? Switching to footnotes would be nice. Tuf-Kat 22:30, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I suspect that "Further reading" has been mixed in with "References" in this article. Jkelly 05:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * No, that's not what happened, but the effect is similar. A month or so ago, I merged the article with a public domain (because it was written by employees of the US gov't) review article (published in a scholarly journal). There was considerable overlap in material between the existing article (I helped write a lot of it) and the reivew article (good indication that we were on target), but the review article had the advantage of more complete citations. I copied the reference section along with it, but I didn't weed out orphan references. I was waiting to do this until the selection of what material to keep and what to ditch was made more final, but as of yet there hasn't been much more work done on the article. I stopped because of lack of time, but I tried to leave the article in a state where someone without specialized knowledge could continue the work. --Rikurzhen 05:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation. Jkelly 06:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the question: "Why do we have sections specifically devoted to Brazil and the US, but no other countries?" I believe that the reason for the section on how U.S. society conceptualizes "race" is because the U.S. "race" notion is world-unique in many ways: one-drop rule, government-enforced involuntary self-identity, race-based (versus needs-based) entitlements, federal regulations requiring Hispanics to be considered a "race" (EEOC) matched by federal regulations forbiding Hispanics from being considered a "race" (census), and so forth. It is specifically interesting to readers wanting to be informed about "race" in general for the same reason that a two-headed snake is interesting&mdash;it is strange. I believe the reason for Brazil was merely to contrast U.S. customs with a different culture. We have discussed adding a similar brief description of the Hindu caste system, again comparing and contrasting it with the others, and I have been considering (but have not yet discussed) writing a similar short compare/contrast essay about the trichotomous (Black/Coloured/White) racial systems common to the rest of the English-speaking world. -- FrankWSweet 19:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I would have no objection to adding another case-study, except the article will become too long. These two case-studies together are sufficient to illustrate the general points being made, and both of them draw on verifiable sources &mdash; I think those are both necessary and sufficient reasons for including them. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 19:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

very important new paper


Abstract:

"Previously, we observed that without using prior information about individual sampling locations, a clustering algorithm applied to multilocus genotypes from worldwide human populations produced genetic clusters largely coincident with major geographic regions. It has been argued, however, that the degree of clustering is diminished by use of samples with greater uniformity in geographic distribution, and that the clusters we identified were a consequence of uneven sampling along genetic clines. Expanding our earlier dataset from 377 to 993 markers, we systematically examine the influence of several study design variables—sample size, number of loci, number of clusters, assumptions about correlations in allele frequencies across populations, and the geographic dispersion of the sample—on the “clusteredness” of individuals. With all other variables held constant, geographic dispersion is seen to have comparatively little effect on the degree of clustering. Examination of the relationship between genetic and geographic distance supports a view in which the clusters arise not as an artifact of the sampling scheme, but from small discontinuous jumps in genetic distance for most population pairs on opposite sides of geographic barriers, in comparison with genetic distance for pairs on the same side. Thus, analysis of the 993-locus dataset corroborates our earlier results: if enough markers are used with a sufficiently large worldwide sample, individuals can be partitioned into genetic clusters that match major geographic subdivisions of the globe, with some individuals from intermediate geographic locations having mixed membership in the clusters that correspond to neighboring regions."

Synopsis:

By helping to frame the ways in which human genetic variation is conceptualized, an understanding of the genetic structure of human populations can assist in inferring human evolutionary history, as well as in designing studies that search for disease-susceptibility loci. Previously, it has been observed that when individual genomes are clustered solely by genetic similarity, individuals sort into broad clusters that correspond to large geographic regions. It has also been seen that allele frequencies tend to vary continuously across geographic space. These two perspectives seem to be contradictory, but in this article the authors show that they are indeed compatible.

First the authors demonstrate that the clusters are robust, in that if sufficient data are used, the geographic distribution of the sampled individuals has little effect on the analysis. They then show that allele frequency differences generally increase gradually with geographic distance. However, small discontinuities occur as geographic barriers are crossed, allowing clusters to be produced. These results provide a greater understanding of the factors that generate the clusters, verifying that they arise from genuine features of the underlying pattern of human genetic variation, rather than as artifacts of uneven sampling along continuous gradients of allele frequencies.

This is a great resolution to the Rosenberg (2002) vs Serre and Paabo (2004) debate that (IMHO) lies at the core of the current debate over human genetic diversity. Published in an open access journal, so check it out, and then let's update the article. --Rikurzhen 08:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not understand the above suggestion. How does the latest report by Rosenberg and others affect this Wikipedia article? The authors conclude (last paragraph on page 668) that:

"Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of ‘‘biological race.’’ ... The arguments about the existence or nonexistence of ‘‘biological races’’ in the absence of a specific context are largely orthogonal to the question of scientific utility...."

As I understand it, there are three reasons why the authors deny that their work supports the notion of biological "race," and why they explicitly avoid involvement with the socio-political (non-biological) "race" notion.

First, although the authors strove to choose alleles randomly, it seems likely that the very definition of "markers of interest" is related to continent of ancestry. In other words, OCA2, M1CR314, and FY (which tend to distinguish Europeans from Africans) are more likely to be identified as significant than, say, the alleles for A, B, AB, and O blood types (which do not). Hence, some clustering may be inevitable given that the polymorphisms recorded may not be truly random among the genome.

Second, the degree of clustering goes up with each increased step in the assumption of number of populations. When they assumed that our species is divided into two populations, the clustering is present but weak. Assuming three populations, the clustering is stronger, and so on up to six populations where the clustering is strongest. It seems evident from their data that assuming seven populations (which they did not do) would have given even stronger clustering, assuming eight would be stronger yet, and so forth with no end in sight. In short, our species comprises a very large number of genetically diverse populations, most of whom are natives of sub-Saharan Africa.

Finally, none of the allele clusters reflect those few physical traits that, to USAmericans, reveals a person's socio-political "race." It is well known that the darkest-skinned people (around Burkina Faso) are not the ones with the kinkiest hair (the Khoisan) and neither of these are the ones with the broadest noses (the Bantu-speaking peoples of equatorial Africa). Instead, this study merely groups individuals into regional populations that are genetically related&mdash;extended families, essentially. And, as with families, the relatedness within each group rises (and intra-group relatedness falls) as you re-classify your samples into larger and larger numbers of smaller and smaller groups. -- Frank W Sweet 16:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The importance to this article is that we've used Rosenberg et al (2002) and Serre and Paabo (2004) to explain some of the meaningful scientific controversy surrounding human genetic diversity and now we can add the findings from Rosenberg (2005). Once I get a chance to scrutinize the new article more closely, I'll add this to the discussion, or someone else can chip in. --Rikurzhen 21:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * "Markers of interest"? I'm looking for this, but can't find it. Can you point me in the right direction? I recall from the 2002 paper that between group variation was only 3-5% for their 300+ marker set by their analysis and closer to 15% by another group's analysis, which is at or below average for the whole genome. --Rikurzhen 21:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

You wrote: "Markers of interest"? I'm looking for this, but can't find it. Can you point me in the right direction?

I was refering to the fact that their sole source of data was Cavalli-Sforza's HGDP-CEPH project. As you may recall, this effort was stalled for several years and nearly killed by a global firestorm of political opposition inspired by the belief (accurate, as it turned out) that data collected on geographic human variation would inevitably be misused to reify the socio-political "race" notion. For Cavalli-Sforza's explanation of the project's survival, see. My point in that paragraph was that the 993 polymorphisms taken from 54 populations studied in this report were collected, tabulated, and stored as part of a project that was specifically designed to detect the faint traces of geographic variation that H. sapiens posesses. Those 993 polymorphisms (out the countless unknown millions of polymorphisms in the species's three billion nucleotides) are precisely those that are expected to vary geographically. That is why they are in HGDP-CEPH. Hence, it is not surprising that those specific 993 polymorphisms were found to vary geographically.

Please do not misunderstand. I enthusiastically support such work. Geographical variation in the human genome is especially important given that humans have less genomic variation than any other large mammal in nature (with the possible exception of cheetahs) and far less variation than either P. troglodytes or P. paniscus. But, important as it is, data on the geographical component of genome variation must not be misused to reify the "race" notion.

You wrote: I recall from the 2002 paper that between group variation was only 3-5% for their 300+ marker set by their analysis and closer to 15% by another group's analysis, which is at or below average for the whole genome.

As I tried to explain, the amount of between-group variation depends entirely upon the number of groups that you arbitrarily choose (and, consequently, their size). If you divide the entire species into just two groups of, say, 3 billion individuals each then the inter-group variation is nil and the intra-group variation is 100 percent. At the other extreme, if you divide the species into 6 billion groups of one person each, then the inter-group variations is 100 percent and the intra-group variation is nil. To a first approximation, inter-group versus intra-group variation would be around 70-30 if you divided the species into a billion or so groups delineated as nuclear famlies. It would be 50-50 for extended families, 30-70 for closely-related clans, 15-85 for regional tribes, 5-95 for continents, and so forth.

The debate between the two teams you mentioned is not whether H. sapiens displays unusually small but detectable genomic variation. Everyone agrees that it does. And it is not whether such variation has a geographic component. Again, this is accepted. And it is not whether each individual trait (or polymorphism) varies in frequency from geographical regions of high occurrence to regions of low occurrence (clines). Again, this is a given. Finally, the issue is not whether some of these traits correlate with others in their geographical distributions (clusters), nor that the correlation grows as the number of arbitrarily assumed groups grows (and their size shrinks). The issue is which view of geographical genome variation (independent clines for each trait versus clusters of traits in groups) is most useful for: medicine, history, anthropology, biology, etc. We must not lose sight of the fact that we are talkng only about how to classify natural phenomena in order to make them easier to understand/teach/learn. At best, clines, clusters, and "races" have no more factual reality in nature than do phyla, genera, etc. All are classification schemes imposed by human intellect upon a universe that could care less. The only debatable issue among alternative classification schemes is their utility. No classification scheme has objective reality. -- Frank W Sweet 14:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Your supposition about the microsatellite panel is interesting. I haven't read any primary research literature on the HGDP project, and so I can't say for certain, but I also note that this is something that Serre and Paabo (2004) should have caught onto because it would have been very important to their analysis. On that point, I appreciate that the difference between the conclusions of Rosenberg versus Serre and Paabo is quite specific, but it is also rather stark. Serre and Paabo conclude that there is no reason to assume that major genetic discontinuities exist between different continents or "races", and that clines rather than clades are the best way to describe human genetic variation. If Rosenberg (2005) is correct, then Serre and Paabo are incorrect on this point and, for example, Risch (2002) is justified in saying that "the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level".

I'll look into this more after Xmas. --Rikurzhen 22:28, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If I understand Frank Sweet correctly, he is pointing out (among several other things, I acknowledge) that claims about race depend not only on onme's methods, but the uses to which the study is put/its intended use-audience. I think this is a very important point not only because in my experience it is true, but because it also would be very helpful to readers who lack a strong background in evolutionary biology or even science, to understand why scientists may legitimately vary in their understandings of "race" (and, as a byproduct, give them more insight into the way science actually works - which is not always or only the pursuit of pure knowledge through the use of an ideal scientific method).  I think this is worth being clear about.  Anyway, Merry Chrismas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and a Happy New Year to you all, Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:58, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

You wrote: " Your supposition about the microsatellite panel is interesting."

I made no supposition specific to the microsatellites. I was talking about all 993 polymorphisms, including the 210 indels.

You wrote: "This is something that Serre and Paabo (2004) should have caught onto because it would have been very important to their analysis."

Of course. That is precisely why the Serre and Paabo study also used the same HGDP-CEPH data set (plus a few other sources). HGDP-CEPH is an excellent data set for studying geographic variation in the genome.

You wrote: "the difference between the conclusions of Rosenberg versus Serre and Paabo is quite specific, but it is also rather stark. Serre and Paabo conclude that ''there is no reason to assume that major genetic discontinuities exist between different continents or 'races.'"

I do not understand what you are getting at. No one disputes the above statement. No one has ever found genetic discontinuities in H. sapiens. In the article, "Support from the relationship of genetic and geographic distance in human populations for a serial founder effect originating in Africa," which Rosenberg, Ramachandran, and Feldman co-authored with Cavalli-Sforza and others (see ), they say the same thing: "Equilibrium models of isolation by distance predict an increase in genetic differentiation with geographic distance. Here we find a linear relationship between genetic and geographic distance in a worldwide sample of human populations, with major deviations from the fitted line explicable by admixture or extreme isolation. A close relationship is shown to exist between the correlation of geographic distance and genetic differentiation (as measured by FST) and the geographic pattern of heterozygosity across populations." That Serre and Paabo conclude that " that clines rather than clades are the best way to describe human genetic variation" while the Rosenberg team concludes the opposite is merely a debate over which mental template is most useful. It is like whether coat color (roan, palomino, chestnut) is a better way of classifying horses than by their intended function (Quarterhorse, Morgan, Tennessee Walker). Which mental template is most useful depends on what question you are trying to answer. As a historian/molecular anthropologist seeking migration patterns, I habitually use clines and have never found clusters useful. But I would undoubtedly feel differently if I were a physician.

You wrote: ... Risch (2002) is justified in saying that "the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level".

I fear that you may misunderstand both Rosenberg and Risch. First, you may misunderstand the Rosenberg study by somehow reading into its statement on page 668, "Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of 'biological race'," that it supports the notion of "biological race." It does not; it explicitly refutes the notion. Second, you may misunderstand Risch in that he is interested in common traits within each of the U.S. ethnic groups. African Americans tend towards diabetis and hypertension, Euro-Americans tend towards dementia and osteoporosis, and Hispanics tend towards cancer. But this has nothing to do with biological "race" because people of African ancestry in the British West Indies and in West Africa have very different disease patterns than African Americans, and Europeans have different disease trends than Euro-Americans.

You may be misled because Risch and his team in their methodology sometimes use the term "race" as synonym for "ethnic group," and not in the biological sense that you imply. Perhaps an example will help explain the difference. Consider the United States. Due to selection across the endogamous color line on the basis of superficial appearance, most members of the African-American community tend to "look black," even those with negligible African DNA while all White Americans "look white," even those with as much as 20-25 percent African DNA. The two endogamous groups (ethnicities) are visibly different and they differ in so many different lifestyle traits (stress, foods, economic status), that they suffer from different disease patterns. And yet, those patterns do not correlate either with actual (invisible) genetic admixture of Americans nor with actual ancestry of Africans and West Indians. They correlate only with which side of the U.S. endogamous color line you are on. Clearly, there is something medically important about the U.S. endogamous color line. Equally clearly, it cannot be connected to "biological race." -- Frank W Sweet 19:59, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Frank, not much time, too busy having fun. But on one point, I think you are clearly mistaken. You write that disease patterns do not correlate either with actual (invisible) genetic admixture of Americans nor with actual ancestry of Africans and West Indians. If this were true, then mapping by admixture linkage disequilibrium would not be possible. However, it has in fact already been applied successfully. --Rikurzhen 05:48, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry. You are right and I am wrong. What I meant to say was that not all disease patterns that reflect ethnicity also match up with ancestral continent of origin. Some (cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, sickle-cell, etc) obviously do. My point was simply that Risch's team identifies the "race" of their subjects via a questionnaire, not by admixture mapping. This is why they list "Hispanic" as a distinct "race" separate from White and Black, and why they find that the Hispanic "race" has its own distinctive diseases. In fact, as I am sure you know, Hispanics are simply a genetic mixture of African and European with more or less Native American depending upon what you mean by "Hispanic" (more Native American and less African in Chicanos, more African and less Native American in Caribbeans). Incidentally, I think that you may misunderstand what is meant by "linkage disequilibrium." For a layman's explanation, see the paragraph starting "The third argument comes from molecular anthropology" in Passing. For more details, see the section "The Percentage Rate Has Remained Relatively Steady over the Years" in the article The Rate of Black-to-White “Passing”. -- Frank W Sweet 17:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The importance of Rosenberg 2005 to this article is that it conclusively refutes Serre and Paäbo's (2004) claim that previous findings of population structure were artifacts of sampling. That's about the only impact (though it updates, details and strengthens Rosenberg 2002.) Deleting all references to Serre and Paäbo 2004 and statements based on it would be an adequate update.

Serre and Paäbo used two data sets. The first consisted of only 20 genetic markers, and therefore lacked statistical power to detect population structure, whether it exists or not. The second was a reanalysis of Rosenberg's 2002 data set, downsampled, and with different parameter choice - so correct attribution of the differences in results (even if they had been quantified) would be impossible. Rosenberg et al. 2005 reanalyzed their previous data plus many more markers, varied the subsampling strategy, data set size, and parameter choices systematically, and measured the outcomes quantitatively. Serre and Paäbo note that the disagreement between their conclusion and Rosenberg 2002's "is largely a result of how the data are depicted and discussed." 155.101.150.220 02:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Race as subspecies
"Lengis" keep removing the following sentence from the "Race as subspecies" section and Slrubenstein keeps putting it back: "Note that groups which would not interbreed freely, even if brought together such that they had the opportunity to do so are, according to some definitions of species, and not different 'races' of the same species." I have seen no discussion on this point. I ask Lengis to please explain here his objection to the sentence before erasing it again. To my eyes, I see no problem with it. There are several definitions of species used in biology, but lack of interbreeding in nature is fundamental to all of them. According to The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the major different definitions of species include: Of these, biospecies is the only definition pertinent to this article. If anything, the sentence is a bit wimpy ("some definitions"). What am I failing to see, gentlemen? -- Frank W Sweet 18:36, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * biospecies = breeding population
 * agamospecies = clone (asexual organisms)
 * morphospecies (or taxospecies, or paleospecies) = based on phenetic (tally of similarities) similarities as proposed by George Gaylord Simpson
 * chronospecies = based on temporal change


 * The original statement which I deleted stated this, "Note that groups which would not interbreed freely, even if brought together such that they had the opportunity to do so, are not races: they are separate species.'"

Which I deleted because it's a false statement. Then surrubenstien put it back, and slaughtered the statement by adding a few new words, which made the statement impossible to comprehend (mostly because it makes no sense).


 * In any case the original statement is incorrect. A species is defined as a group of living beings that can breed and produce fertile offspring.  There have been rare reports of different species of animals breeding together in the wild, in particular lions and tigers.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger


 * "According to 'The Tiger, Symbol of Freedom' (Nicholas Courtney, editor): Rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild."


 * However the male Liger is not fertile (similar to a mule), thus Tigers and Lions are seperate species. The original statement insinuates that different species will not breed, but I just pointed out one example where they have.


 * Furthermore, the original statement was slaughtered by surrubenstien into something nonsensical, and utterly incomprehensible, losing it's original meaning in the first place.


 * Rather than simply chopping something that you don't like, it would be better to explain your objections, as you have done above, and then replace the offending statement with a better one. One problem here is that all science consists of making models to account from regularities that we see, or think we see, in the real world. There is what is really out there, and then there are the constructs produced by the human mind that attempt to make useful fictions or helpful generalizations that work well enough to be helpful. A great difficulty with the idea of species is that there are not always clear lines of demarcation where we imagine them to be. For instance, some people think common wolves, Canis lupus, and Red Wolves, Canis rufus, ought to be counted as two species and other people say they ought to be counted as one species. I'm guessing that when their genomes are sorted out someday it will turn out that they are on two branches of the same limb that are close together, so close that there are not many genetic differences between them. Saying they will breed or won't breed, or that their matings will produce viable fetuses or not, or that their offspring will be capable of fertile matings or not may all be iffy judgments. I seem to recall reading that not all mules are sterile.  For the purposes of this article, however, the salient point is that any humans, from bushman to tow-headed Swedes, can and will produce offspring. So there is no way that one race could be members of species A and another race could consist of members of species B. Not only that, there aren't even any subspecies (an idea thatis even foggier than the idea of species). If humans share 98% of their genome with chimpanzees, how many genetically determined characteristics are left to distinguish the races? P0M 06:04, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Apparently there is a new and anonymous user who doesn't sign he posts, which is making this a litte hard to follow. But someone - I think not POM - wrote "Furthermore, the original statement was slaughtered by surrubenstien into something nonsensical, and utterly incomprehensible, losing it's original meaning in the first place." "Slaughtered is pretty melodramatic rhetoric, meaningless, really. The only explnation someone provied in the edit summary for deleting the sentence in question was that this is not the definition of species.  So all I did was add a dependent claus, "according to some definitions" or something like that.  Adding a dependent clause hardly "slaughters" a sentence.  What it does do is maintain NPOV, because I am sure there are some definiions of specieis by which the statement really is false.  But here are other definitions by which the statement is true.  Adding this dependent clause does not render the sentence incomprehensible or nonsensicle, and saying so is not a good argument against my edit.  Anonymou interlocutor, try to be more specific and clear, if you can.  But it should give you pause, that you are the only one who keeps deleting it, while others keep restoring it.  If you have any case for deleting the sentence, you certainly have not made it here on the talk page. And you need to explain your case convincingly, or others will continue to restore the sentence you delete. For example, I see that Frank Sweet gave a specific explanation for keeping the sentence, and argument against you deletion - yet, you ignore his comment. Try communicating with other contributors to this article, rather than just dismissing their edits with melodramatic yet empty rhetoric. Slrubenstein  |  Talk


 * I said you slaughtered the sentence not because you added a dependent clause, but because of your terrible grasp of the English language. Anyone reading that statement wouldn't be able to understand it because of your awkward sentence construction.  The sheer amount of spelling mistakes in your retort above confounds that notion.  Lengis 18:32, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You should have written of his "number" of spelling mistakes, not his "amount" of spelling mistakes. Tut tut. What a terrible grasp of the English language. Paul B 13:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * When people use expressions like "slaughtered," I basically turn off and read some science fiction or whatever. It may make the speaker feel better to use angry expressions, it may make the speaker feel that s/he has slain the opponent, but it actually gives the speaker a black eye, as do invidious and irrelevant add-ons in the same vein. There is a reason for requiring civility on these pages, and it is not just so that we can all feel that we can contribute without having our personal qualities subjected to mud slinging. We should all remember that many people may be "lurking" on these pages, that not just the person we happen to be angry at in the moment will read what is said, and that what we do say is a matter of public record forever, or at least until J. Wales or somebody way up in the stratosphere decides that it is so libelous that it should  be expunged from the public record.  Even than, I am sure, what we write stays on an archival copy somewhere. P0M 19:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Please stay on topic. We aren't here to discuss your personal emotions, or the emotions of internet users who you never met, but feel the need to speak on the behalf of.  Lengis 01:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah. I think I understand. It is a problem of set overlap. Statement 1, "If two groups are species, then they cannot interbreed," is inaccurate because some closely related species can interbreed. On the other hand, statement 2, "If two groups cannot interbreed, then they are definitely considered separate species," is accurate. Lengis's concern was that the original sentence could be interpreted as statement-1, when what was intended was statement-2. Okay, I reworded the latest version a bit to try to reflect this.


 * Thank you, Lengis. Speaking for myself, I am willing to accept all the help that I can get in making sure that the reader hears what I really meant to say. But your future help would be more appreciated if you explained what you had in mind here in the discussion area and&mdash;even more important&mdash;sign your name. To do so, just type four tildes "~" after anything you post here. -- Frank W Sweet 14:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with the changes you made. Lengis 18:32, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Hitler quote?
"one of Hitler's favorite sayings was, 'Politics is applied biology'." - Never saw this one before. How about a cite? -- 2 january 2006 - (added tilde sig here later) 200.141.119.254 14:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It's usually attributed to Ernst Haeckel. Paul B 13:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Paul, can you find a citable source? Is it possible that it predates the Nazis (e.g. Spengler)?  I don't know, but it is an interesting quote and it would be good to have a precise and accurate citation. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Links:Ernst Haeckel, Oswald Spengler - 200.141.119.254 14:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for what? These twolinks are useless.  For one thing, we should not be drawing on our own articles for sources.  Moreover, neither of the articles attribute the quote in Question fo Haeckel or Spenger.  What is your point? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Why the unfriendly tone? I didn't mean "these links have the source of the quote", I meant, "here are the articles about these guys for anybody who's wondering who the heck they are". "Thanks" means: "Thanks to everybody attempting to help track down the source of this quote." Have a good one. - 200.141.119.254 05:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * There are numerous web pages that attribute the phrase to Haeckel, or say that Hitler, or some other Nazi leader was fond of it, but it's difficult to find a reliable source. It seems that the expression was in circulation at the time, and was associated with Haeckel, but a source is not easy to locate. Paul B 13:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Paul, I am sure you are right about the difficulties in finding a source. Hopefully, though, someone at Wikipedia can find it. I am not being sarcastic - isn't the whole idea of Wikipedia that among a group of thousands one person may know what another person does not? Let's hope we can get a real source ... Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

.


 * - - From http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Ernst_Haeckel#English_Wikipedia:_Preisangabe

<< Ich kenne nur das Zitat von Rudolf Hess, dem Stellvertreter Hitlers, aus dem Jahre 1934, das lautet: "Nationalsozialismus ist nichts anderes als angewandte Biologie" (S. etwa hier oder hier). Eine Quelle lautet offenbar: Theodore D. Hall, The Scientific Background of the Nazi "Race Purification" Program, http://www.trufax.org/avoid/nazi.html (zitiert nach: ). Wikipedia zitiert Haeckel mit den Worten "Politik ist angewandte Biologie". Die Quelle dafür wird nicht genannt und ist mir auch nicht bekannt. Ein Verbindung zu Haeckel kann ich durch Internetrecherche nicht belegen. Es finden sich nicht sehr viele Einträge. Hier wird er z.B. nicht genannt. Solange keine Quellen vorhanden sind, würde ich diese Verbindung so nicht behaupten. Dass Hitler hier Haeckel zitiert ist offenbar falsch, soweit ich mich erinnere hat das auch Gasman nicht gesagt, der bei der Verknüpfung von Haeckel und Hitler am weitesten geht (s. auch hier). --GS 22:24, 5. Jan 2006 (CET) >>

<< Mittels Google habe ich nur diesen Text gefunden, in dem behauptet wird, dieses Zitat stamme von Haeckel. In den Welträtseln, wo man es sich thematisch am ehesten vorstellen könnte, ist es jedoch nicht zu finden. -- Weiße Rose 01:08, 6. Jan 2006 (CET) >>


 * Is this of any help? - 200.141.105.210 14:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be of a lot of help &mdash; if this were the German wikipedia rather than the English wikipedia. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The conclusion of the discussion in German cited above is that there is only one other webpage that has the German equivalent of the quote, and this cites two sources from Haeckel, while not indicating which one the citation is from:
 * HAECKEL‚ E.: Generelle Morphologie der Organismen; Jena 1866
 * HAECKEL‚ E.: Die Weltraethsel, mit einem Nachworte: Das Glaubensbekenntnis des Reinen Vernunft; Stuttgart 1899

One commentator (GS) said he could exclude the Weltraethsel, so it would be up to someone to sift the general morphology. However, maybe going on one website is not very good. You may be more successful by trying to find a longer biographical treatise of Haeckel.

I'll have a look for peer-reviewed stuff, hang on! - Samsara 17:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Some suggestions - the list is a bit repetitive, but I've not cropped it since you may have access to some articles but not others:

Ghiselin, MT. 2003. "Ernst Haeckel and Wilhelm Bolsche - Correspondence 1887-1919" HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE LIFE SCIENCES, 25 (4): 544-544

Montgomery, W. 2004. "Ernst Haeckel-Wilhelm Bolsche: Briefwechsel 1887-1919" ISIS, 95 (1): 137-138 (MAR 2004)

Hossfeld, U. 2001. "The unsolved world enigma - Frida von Uslar-Gleichen and Ernst Haeckel - Letters and diaries 1898-1903" HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE LIFE SCIENCES, 23 (2): 310-312

Richardson, MK; Jeffery, JE. 2002. "Editorial: Haeckel and modern biology" THEORY IN BIOSCIENCES, 121 (3): 247-251 (NOV 2002)

Lustig, AJ. 2002. "Erich Wasmann, Ernst Haeckel, and the limits of science" THEORY IN BIOSCIENCES, 121 (3): 252-259 (NOV 2002)

Gasman, D. 2002. "Haeckel's scientific monism as theory of history" THEORY IN BIOSCIENCES, 121 (3): 260-279 (NOV 2002)

Breidbach, O. 2002. "The former synthesis - Some remarks on the typological background of Haeckel's ideas about evolution" THEORY IN BIOSCIENCES, 121 (3): 280-296 (NOV 2002)

Sander, K. 2002. "Ernst Haeckel's ontogenetic recapitulation: irritation and incentive from 1866 to our time" ANNALS OF ANATOMY-ANATOMISCHER ANZEIGER, 184 (6): 523-533 (NOV 2002)

di Gregorio, MA. 2002. "Reflections of a nonpolitical naturalist: Ernst Haeckel, Wilhelm Bleek, Friedrich Muller and the meaning of language" JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY, 35 (1): 79-109 (2002)

Mehler, B. 2001. "Haeckel's monism and the birth of fascist ideology" JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY, 34 (1): 207-209 (2001)

Montgomery, W. 2000. "Global enigma and marvel of life: Ernst Haeckel - Work, impact and legacy" ISIS, 91 (3): 601-602 (SEP 2000)

Breidbach, O. 2000. "Haeckel's monism and the birth of fascist ideology." ISIS, 91 (3): 602-603 (SEP 2000)

Di Gregorio, MA. 2000. "Worldwide enigmas and wonders of life - Ernst Haeckel - His Work, Impact and Legacy" JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY, 33 (2): 401-404 (2000)

MAIENSCHEN, J. 1985. "HAECKEL,ERNST - A BIOGRAPHY IN LETTERS - GERMAN - USCHMANN,G" BRITISH JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, 18 (58): 115-116 (1985)

POTTS, GD. 1976. "HAECKEL,E - BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH" AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER, 38 (9): 555-& (1976)

These ones I'm less hopeful about but you may have easier access to them, so I'll give them anyway:

Kemp, M. 1998. "Haeckel's hierarchies" NATURE, 395 (6701): 447-447 (OCT 1 1998)

Richardson, MK. 1998. "Haeckel's embryos, continued" SCIENCE, 281 (5381): 1289-1289 AUG 28 1998

Richardson, MK; Hanken, J; Selwood, L; et al. 1998. "Haeckel, embryos, and evolution" SCIENCE, 280 (5366): 983-+ (MAY 15 1998)

Hanken, J; Richardson, MK. 1998. "Haeckel's embryos" SCIENCE, 279 (5355): 1288-1288 (FEB 27 1998)

Pennisi, E. 1997. "Developmental biology - Haeckel's embryos: Fraud rediscovered" SCIENCE, 277 (5331): 1435-1435 (SEP 5 1997)

Hossfeld, U; Nothlich, R; Olsson, L. 2003. "Haeckel's literary hopes dashed by materialism?" NATURE, 424 (6951): 875-875 (AUG 21 2003)

Samsara 17:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll be in the BL on moday, so I'll order some of these if I get the chance. Robert J, Lifton's book The Nazi Doctors: Medical killing and the Psychology of Genocide (1986) London: Macmillan, has references to a speech given by Hess in 1934 in which he said "National Socialism is applied biology". (Lifton, p.31) Lifton gets this from one of his sources, a pro-Nazi doctor referred to only as Dr. Johann S, who was a pupil of Haeckel's and who heard the speech and approved the sentiment. Paul B 17:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge?
There has been some discussion on whether to merge Race and Validity of human races. Looking at both articles I'm having trouble deciding whether that would be a good idea. The "Validity" article has some good content, and I'm sure that most of it is covered in "Race", but should there be two seperate articles?Kerowyn 08:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I actually wrote much of the content of Validity of human races. When I wrote it, I wrote it as part of the article on Race.  At that time (several years ago) there was another editor who took issue with virtually all that I wrote (and of course I took isue with virtually all that he wrote).  I believe he removed all of my contributions to create this second article (but I may be mistaken about this - it is even possible that I did it, though I don't think so).  There were two basic conflicts: is race biological or social in nature, and can one single article address both views?  The other editor and I were divided over the both questions.


 * Since that time a number of other editors have worked on the Race article and, for what it is worth, I am pretty satisfied that it represents both extreme views (race is entirely biological/entirely social) as well as views in etween, and in an NPOV manner. Therefore, from my point of view, the Validity of human races is no longer justified as a separate article.


 * Many people put much more work into the Race article than into the Validity of human races. Therefore, we should privilege the Race article.  The question is, is there any content in the Validity of human races article that should be re-incorporated into the Race article?


 * To be frank, I do not think I am the one to answer that question. Since the "Validity" article came into existence because of an edit-war in which I was a prominent participant, I think it would be improper for me to do the merge.


 * However, I urge others to do the merge and then delete (or redirect) the "Validity" article. My only advice is this: since Race in its current form is much more refined and the consensus version, always defer to the Race article in terms of both organization and content.  If the Race article has the same content as the Validity article, just forget about what is in the "Validity" article.  If the "Validity" article has material that is not in the 'race" article, I think it should be incorperated into the race article but only in a way that respects the structure of the "race" article. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 16:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge. I think it should be done ASAP, for the above reasons. If it is difficult to quickly integrate to the main "Race" entry, then it should be temporarily put in a subsection of "Race" as to be progressively integrated to the whole of the entry. Lapaz 21:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW, making greater use of summary style might be desireable for this article. According to estimates given at that page, this article would take the average reader about an hour to read. This seems especially long considering this is a basic topic that may be of interest to many younger readers.--Nectar 22:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Potentially relevent publication?
A hell of a lot of work has gone into this page, by the looks of it, so i don't wish to blunder in and change anything without running it by the 'residents', but a recent paper (which made the cover of Science) may inspire an update of the 'Physical variation in humans' section: To summerize the paper, a novel gene identified in a zebrafish pigmentation mutant led to the human orthologue that appears to resolve between 25 and 38% of the European-African difference in skin melanin index. The polymorphism turns out to be ranked second among over 3000 ancestry informative markers on the Hapmap. Moreover, in contrast to the Harding, 2000 paper on Mc1r, the 'European' allele has strong evidence for positive selection (consistant with the vitamin D hypothesis). I'm sure the implications for the concept of race based on skin colour is obvious. I'm happy to work it in if there is general consensus, but i'm sure there are people out there more familiar with this article that could do a better job. Rockpocket 06:46, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * No one is really do much work on this article at this time. You should go for it. --Rikurzhen 03:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

explanation of revert for Samsara
S, I just reverted a revert of yours. I do NOT object to the material that you want kept in the article. I DO object to its placement. The article makes it clear that at different scales, and for different practicioners, "race" can have limited but obvious utility. The material I reverted illustrates just this point. In short, I think the article already makes the point, and makes it in a more appropriate place. If you feel that more can and should e said on this matter, I do not object but it should go in the appropriate place, namely here or here  or in this general section (race in practice) create a new subsection on forensic anthropology and add more material. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the material is nice for being quantitative. I assumed that someone objected to the figure and removed it for that reason. While I don't know whether the figure is correct, it seems at least plausible (80% accurate geographic placement of a person based on facial measurements - which have started to be recorded on passports in Germany, to make another point for its relevance here). It's also balanced in that it mentions that one criterion cannot be considered sufficient. - Samsara 16:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not arguing. But do we have verifiable sources? In any event, as I said, I do not object to its inclusion, I just think it belongs in a more appropriate section. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:04, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, this at least is the edit that introduced that section:. - Samsara 17:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

And to be honest, I don't have the ambition to chase down a source for that particular snippet. May it RIP. - Samsara 18:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * fair enough. Frankly, I think the article already makes this point anyway, Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:07, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Why is "Hispanic" there?
Those "Hispanics" would better be described as Amerindian/Mestizos - as Hispanic is more a linguistic and cultural category. - Unsigned by 157.157.213.14 at 15:40, 16 January 2006


 * Possibly, but "Hispanic" is the term used by various U.S. government agencies for racial and ethnic categorisation in different contexts. I've been through the article, and it is very careful to point to both the problems and value of such categories and to use the terms "racial", "ethnic", "cultural" etc where appropriate. Paul B 15:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Foucault, race and the Glorious Revolution
QUOTE "Michel Foucault showed the popular historical and political use of a non-essentialist notion of "race" used in the "race struggle" discourse during the 1688 Glorious Revolution and under Louis XIV's end of reign (See above)."

I've read a lot of 17th century English history and even some Foucault but this paragraph is news to me. In fact, it seems like bullshit - there were many factors in the 1688 Glorious Revolution but 'race', however constructed, wasn't one of them. Someone should either provide a source for this, or delete it.84.68.89.192 20:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The passage is referring to Foucault's arguments about the use of claims about conflicting ethnic identities developed during the English civil war - particularly about Anglo-Saxon peoples suffering under the "Norman yolk". These were later articulated in 1688 as arguments about native/natural English freedom being violated by "foreign" cultures. "Race" in this context implies lineage and ethnicity. The claim is that these arguments about clashes between ethnic groups were the foundation for the more "essentisalist" race discourses of the 19th century. It's a bit marginal to the subject of this article, since the concept of "race" here is very loose. Paul B 01:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

i replaced the race mugshots
this new one is more correct and contains 2 racial divisons which were not on the prevois picture

pleace note that these pictures are not copyrighted and very old.


 * I've moved the image to a more appropriate location. I think it's useful to have an image representing this "classic" anthropological subdivision, but it would be highly desirable to know its source. All you say on the image file is that it's on "a lot of websites". Does it come from an anthropology textbook? Paul B 16:59, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I think they are from a anthropology textbook, i found those five images and put them together using a graphics editor. It might be from a book called "the origin of races" from the 1930s but most of the copies of the book have been burned due to the fact that most of it's info was incorrect, but any ways these pictures are not copyrighted that's for sure. Digitalseal 17:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * You mean Carleton Coon's book? That's from a little bit later than the 30s. It's still in academic libraries. Paul B 17:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, i'm not sure if it's from that book. according to the site i found them on it's not from any book just from some photographer. I haven't find any info about these pictures being copyrighted though. Digitalseal 17:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It is from Coon. I'll label it accordingly. Paul B 17:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * All right then, is it than safe to use the image? no copyright issues? Digitalseal 17:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It's difficult to say. Coon was obviously using "library" images. They are not very likely to be the work of a single photographer, nor is copyright likely to be enforced. Paul B 18:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * ok, And thank you for the help, I am a complete newbie to Wikipedia = ) Digitalseal 18:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

---

This article is too long
This article needs to be shortened--It is 4 times as long as recommended. The section on origin of modern humans, including the multiregional, and out of africa is a good candidate for removal--it is all well covered in the single-origin hypothesis and multiregional hypothesis articles and is, moreover, rather remote from the subject of race. I propose to shorten it to a sentence or two.

The other section that needs to go, I think, is that on race in brazil. While interesting, one has to wonder, why brazil? Why not Guatemala, iceland, China, or the former soviet union? They all have interesting stories, like brazil. There is, for many countries, including brazil "demographics of __". I propose to remove this section too.DonSiano 17:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I propose to start the merge of this article with "Race", which is in many parts very similar by first eliminating the non-redundant parts from this article. DonSiano 03:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the first pass of the merge of this article to "Race" is nearly complete. Some reworking, and esepecially, shortening of the article in Race is very much to be desired. Hope I wasn't too heavy handed--this isn't easy! DonSiano 05:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The section on Brazil is not about demographics, on the contrary, it reveals how the social construction of race makes demographic statistics concerning race misleading. Why Brazil?  Because it is a classic case-study in the social contruction of race, and it is easy to provide a verifiable source.  It is only an example, but we need an example, especially one that reveals a construction of race quite different from that of the US (or UK or other English-speaking countries). Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:28, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As to cutting the section on the origin of modern humans - I think Rikurzhen, who put a lot of work into that section, should chime in before we make any decision. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 14:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, yes the Brazil case study section in Race is not demographics and there is little overlap with the article on the demographics--they compliment one another, I show a contrasting approach to boot. Perhaps we should consider moving it there.  On the modern humans section the overlap is quite extensive and a better case can be made for removing most of it as redundant.  I won't do anything if there is not a good consensus, but the article does now seem quite long and some things should be moved to other articles, surely.  Any other ideas?DonSiano 14:47, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I really think it is important to keep the Brazil material to illustrate the argument for the social construction of race, which is something that several Wikipedians are very much opposed to. Keeping it in is part of what makes it such a finely balanced article. As to the modern humans stuff, well, I think economy is good, but then again Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. Let's see what Rikurzhen and others - Frank Sweet, Guettarda, others, think &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Slrubenstein (talk &bull; contribs) 14:57, 9 February 2006.


 * I suggest using Summary Style for any section that is too long. This involves moving material from this article to a (new?/different?) one and leaving a short summary here. It has been attempted at Race and intelligence. --Rikurzhen 17:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, now that it is done, I'm not convinced now that the merge of the two articles, "Race", and "Validity of Human Races" that I did worked out all that well. The "Race" article is now quite long, a bit of a mish-mash, and shortening it significantly may be quite difficult to do with any sort of consensus.  Perhaps we should just return to the articles as they were before the merge.  Any thoughts?DonSiano 08:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I am ionclined to say, restore the earlier version. It is long, yes. But it also addresses one of the most controversial topics Wikipedia addresses, and after hard work by many, many people (and many arguments) I think we achieved a GREAT article that fully conformed with NPOV and verifiability, as well as any article possible could. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 11:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

"Meme"
First you say "Try to keep the first sentence at least somewhat mainstream" The term meme is mainstream just because you don't know it doesn't make it not mainstream. Second I disagree all ideas are not transferable. Things or ideas aren't transferred until they are accepted by another party. Plus its not a matter of the idea being transferable its a matter of definition. Race is a concept or ideology developed in order to separate individuals. It was created by scholars who desired to social engineer or memetically engineer memetic engineering people to act a certain way towards another group. I hold degrees in race relations, Egyptology and Anthropology. I base this off facts. It doesn't exist and it didn't always exist. I truly think you have a problem with someone editing your article instead. Talk 12:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Meme is a word used by a relatively small circle of people to refer to a set of ideas that people have been discussing for a very very long time (Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind is just the tip of the iceberg). The claims you make about memes in the paragraph above are points Ruth benedict made about culture seventy or so years ago.  Many more people use the word "culture" and "social construction" to talk about these issues, and they have been talking about them for a very long time.  Sociologists of science, philosophers of science, and historians of scienct do not use "meme" because it is an unnecessary neologism.  Why add unnecessary jargon to the article? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

That is an opinion of yours that it is unessary jargon. Culture is a meme as well. What is your basis that scientist do not use this term and historians. Richard Dawkins uses the word meme in the field of evolutionary biology, Daniel Dennett in his research on the philosophy of mind, others in the fields of social sciences such as Francis Heylighten, and a host of others in such diverse fields as artificial intelligence research, corporate strategy planning, psychology, sociology and cultural evolution.

Although memetics has not as yet been used extensively in the study of history. This is easily explained. The science itself is, in its infancy. Therefore, a great deal of time and effort is currently being spent upon the method itself, seeking a more rigid analytical framework. These issues and many more are currently being fleshed out by memeticists, or interested academics, all over the globe. However, it cannot be denied that memetics does have something to offer us now, even in its youth, as an explanation of thought by analysing the structures by which `successful' or popular ideas transmit themselves form brain to brain. The science offers us the ability to structurally assign properties to certain types of ideas, empirically defend this formula, and then assess what this `idea', this meme, can be expected to do or more importantly not do. By not allowing this definition to be added is hindering the progress of a science and knowledge. What gives you the right to do that? Why would you want to do that? Is it for selfish reasons. To say it's used by a small group is based on the views of what you consider small. Do you consider millions of people to be small?

[1] See Jonathan Last's article "The nature of history" pp 142 - 157 in Interpreting archaeology: finding meaning in the past. Ian Hodden et al, Routledge, London 1995

2 Barthes, R, "Historical Discourse", p149: "What really happens is that the author discards the human persona but replaces it with an `objective' one; the authorial subject is as evident as ever, but it has become an objective subject. Structuralism: a Reader, ed M.Lane, Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London 1970, pp145 - 69.

3 See Beard's reread of Beard in "Re-reading (Vestal) Virginity", ch 11 p171 in Women in Antiquity, eds R.Hawley and B Lerick 1995.

4 Foucault, M The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith, London: Tavistock 1972, 6-7

5 For example see RA Markus, "Signs, Communication and Communities", where in his analysis of St Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana he stresses the need to use semiotic methodology, pp.97 - 108 in De Doctrina Christiana : a classic of western culture edited by Duane W.H. Arnold and Pamela Bright. Notre Dame : University of Notre Dame Press, c1995.

6 St Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, book II, translation from Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers chs 18 (28) and 28 (42) atURL.

7 Dawkins, R The Selfish Gene, Paladin 1976 p208

8 Ron Hale-Evans, Memetics: A Systems Metabiology, Version 950220 at URL 

Elohimgenius  |  Talk 21:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I can succeed in making everybody unhappy. "Meme" is itself a meme, and a meme that replicates with frequent mutations, making it somewhat problematical to use the word "meme" to talk about other things -- nobody is sure which transcription of the original meme one is talking about.


 * That being said, the point at which both Elohimgenius and Slrubenstein contend can have a clearer characterization, viz.: The word "meme" is a conscious play on the word "gene," and, as such, it carries with it a claim and so when it is used to discuss the meaning of the word "race" it involves a very definite point of view. (There is nothing wrong about that fact, per se, but the article must make clear that we are dealing with the POV of one group of concerned people.)


 * Calling some concept a meme implies the belief that it has an "infective" function, i.e., it has the power to organize the elements of discourse previously at work in some universe of discourse into a new form or arrangement which tends to propagate itself from that point forward. Information that was originally relatively fluid and composed of units that might come into focus at one time and fade from focus at another time comes to be organized in a form wherein some components are linked to other components in relatively permanent ways and therefore cannot easily "get lost in the shuffle."


 * So the "meme explanation of race" would presumably be that originally there were elements such as color, language, non-verbal (and perhaps unconscious) forms of communication, culture, etc., etc. that originally were seen in isolation from each other, or perhaps in shifting coalitions. Joe is white as a sheet, speaks a Germanic language, does not hunch his shoulders as a display of affect intended to indicate a species of bewilderment, etc., etc. Joan is the color of a manilla envelope, speaks Aramaic, hunches her shoulders in bewilderment at the follies of humanity many times a day, etc., etc.  If Joan's son speaks German, and hunches his shoulders less, well, he's a different person, after all.  Then somebody invents the idea of race, and race is so persuasive somehow that it trumps ethnicity. Joe and Joan's son would never be "Chinese" even if as an orphan he was raised in Xiakou, China, never saw anybody with his general genetic characteristics until after he went into the army and fought in Korea, etc.  He would never be "Chinese" because he belongs to another "race."  And that would be the case despite his being of approximately the same color as the people around him, speaking the same language, using the same non-verbal symbols, being thoroughly enculturated into the local variety of Chinese culture, etc., etc.


 * The "meme theory of race" would then assert that there is something particularly compelling about assembling information into units that we call "race" -- something compelling in a way that assembling the information into competing schemata such as "population groups" is not.


 * Personally, I probably have a "set" to accept this explanation for the popularity of the idea of "race." Many of the people who have edited this article over the past several years seem to me to have a powerful and irrational preference for the unadorned term "race" despite all of the baggage that it brings with it. It seems to function as a central touchstone for the entire world view of some people.  But that acerbic view of "race" is my own POV, and it cannot be allowed to pre-judge the issue of whether there is something that fits the definition of "race."  (I've walked away from this contentious article for so long that I have forgotten.  Do we have a definition for "race" yet?  I was always begging for an operational definition of race, but I don't think I ever saw one.)


 * "Race" is a word waiting for an agreed definition. Will that definition turn out to use "meme" in its formulation? I don't know. Probably as soon as the word is proposed as a component of the "standard definition of the word 'race'" half the world or more will turn away from that definition -- even if it is the best definition. P0M 01:52, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

That "Racial Triangle" should be removed
It is not explained at all in the main article and is flawed to begin with (Mexican is a Nationality just like British and Canadian yet you don't see those two groups clustered within the Triangle).


 * It's explained in the caption ("Triangle plot shows average admixture of five North American ethnic groups. Individuals that self-identify with each group can be found at many locations on the map, but on average groups tend to cluster differently.") "British" is not a North American ethnic group, and the list does not claim to be exhaustive. The term "mexican" refers to term used as an self-identification by individuals. Paul B 01:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It should still be removed regardless of its "caption" which is ambiguous at best. North American Ethnic groups is a silly notion and doesn't have any reference articles on Wikipedia (let alone linked to the Triangle chart). Anyone can draw a chart and say that it represents an average admixture. There's no proof here. Also, if you're going to argue that "mexican" is a term used as a "self-identification" by individuals then we need to see "Southerners", "Texans", "Cajuns", "Yankees", "Jamaican", "Cuban", Dominican", "Melungeon", "Confederates", "Rednecks", "Irish", and a slew of "Other" self-identifiers utilized by millions of other individuals who self-apply the term.


 * As per the image page caption, this figure is adapted from Keita, et al. (2004) Nat Genet. 2004 Nov;36(11 Suppl):S17-20. Your criticisms are moot, as it's not just anyone but the authors of a peer reviewed paper who drew the original figure, using the terms you are criticizing. You can't add data that doesn't exist (i.e. "Southerners", etc). --Rikurzhen 18:20, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, with increasing public interest in ancestry-informative genetic admixture mapping, researchers have begun publishing such data on many other groups, including some of the ones named above. Not "Southerners" yet, perhaps, but there are studies either published or underway on Melungeons, Lumbees, "White" South Carolinians, "White" Louisiana Creoles, Puerto Ricans, and many others. Not unexpectedly, such scatter diagrams in the U.S. show relatively more Native American admixture in Appalachian regions and more African admxiture in regions that once lacked the US-distinctive single endogamous color line (South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana). There is no doubt that the triangle is a useful pedagogical aid. See http://backintyme.com/ODR/viewtopic.php?t=1428 (nine posts down) for an example of its use. -- Frank W Sweet 19:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Racial POV in Race Article
When speaking about the differences of race wouldn't it be better to not use racial terms to describe the various groups of people. It is fine when referring to what was done in the past historically or explaining how the terms white or black correlate to events disproving race or the concept of race. However when explaing a point, wouldn't it be more apporpriate to use the terms European or African. To do otherwise implies a POV of the writer that is stating that the writer considers a group of people to be of a certain race. In addition to uses the terms white or black by the editor or author is in itself the practice of racism by the definition of the word. Making the writer or article editor a racist. --Gnosis 22:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * There may be a few excpetions, but I don't see any major misuse of the terms 'white', 'black', 'European', or 'African' in this article. Most of the times 'white' and 'black' are used is in reference to people's self-identification or in reference to the concepts themselves. --Rikurzhen 23:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I will review the references in the article however the term African-American is a more acceptable term. This is more of an accurate self identification as it has become more of a standard, although there are some who still use te term Black.--Gnosis 16:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * African-American is only "more aceptable" if the passage in question is exclusively about America. Paul B 01:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Breed/race analogy
The section on the analogy between dog-breeds and races seems problematic. I've done a provisional cleanup, but more work needs to be done here of the passage is to stay. I don't see any objection in principle to making this comparison if it can be shown to be useful, but we have to be careful and accurate. Ideally we need citable data on the analogy, and the arguments pro and con regarding it. Paul B 12:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on this one Paul there were a few minor problems. I think your cleanup was fine but citable data is needed.--Gnosis 16:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree also. I was going to delete the paragraph but you beat me to it. The problem I had was the implication that research into genetically mediated behavioral differences is discouraged. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hundreds of studies on how genetic variation affects human behavior have been published over the past 20 years and many others are currently underway. For an excellent and readable survey, I recommend Matt Ridley, Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes us Human(New York: HarperCollins, 2003) (reprinted in paperback as The Agile Gene). Of course, no genetic variant mediator of behavior has ever been found to align with the "race" notion. Frank W Sweet 19:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)