Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 6

Important Documentation Issues:
P0M: Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a footnote/link to substantiation for the following claim?
 * This position recently received a boost from genetic studies at the molecular level which show characteristic allele signatures for the groups traditionally identified as the three major races, resulting in maps that clearly delineate genetic clines (in which the clinal zones are a small part of the total) summarized quite well by longstanding racial and ethnic appellations.

5. Heads Up
User 195.92.168.174 has made a change which s/he says is to "remove politics" that actually adds politics explicitly. It appears to me that the change would be difficult to substantiate. P0M

Part 6
Responses to POM and Peak: POM, by standard I mean something like "a bar of metal." Perhaps a cleare way to phrase the first sentence would be "Race, defined in various ways, is a taxonomic principle..." There are two issues, in my mind, with "race." First, is any definition of race valid/useful/meaningful? Who argues that some definition is valid etc., and who argues that no definition can be, and why? Second, IF anyone has ever argued that a definition of race can be valid/useful/meaningful, what have the definitions been, and what have the arguments for and against been? I think this would be a constructive way of introducing a comprehensive article. Slrubenstein

To Peak, you suggest that there are a number of different points of view as to what "race" is: a) "Race is a folk taxonomic concept..." (this was the phrasing used in the revision of 15:19, 8 Jan 2002) b) "Race is a social construct." c) "Race has several meanings related to classification. These meanings vary depending on whether the classification is based on scientific criteria, self-identification, interviewer opinion, or some other critera; on whether the categories are created so as to be mutually exclusive or not; and on whether the criteria used in defining the categories are based on ancestry, genetics, physical     characteristics, behavioral criteria, or some combination of these." d) Scientists have attempted to apply taxonomic principles to identify different "races". e) "Race does not exist."

My response: I prefer a different opeining than "a", simply, "Race is a taxanomic principle..." with a link to "taxonomy." That link will reveal that there are scientific and folk taxonomies, so the opening I suggest would encompass BOTH "b," "c," and "d." That race is a taxonomic principle does not at all suggest that it isn't "socially constructed" -- nor that it may be "scientific." I think the article could be more effectively organized, but I DO think the article provides examples of both points of view -- scientific taxonomies and folk taxonomies, both of which people have explained as being either socially constructive or universal and objective (whether because of natural law or divine law). N.B.: taxonomies may consist of mutually exclusive groups or overlapping groups, and can be based on all different sorts of criteria. I also disagree with you that "e: race does not exist" is one point of view "about what 'race' is." The argument that race does not exist is an important POV that must be represented in the article (although I'd like to hear -- I mean, read -- examples of well-known figures (scientists or social critics or leaders or what have you) that argue that even as a social construct there are no and have never been "races." In any event, this legitimate POV is a view about the discourse of race, and not a view about what race is, when it is claiming that race isn't. Slrubenstein

P0M: You defined "principle" above, "By 'principle' I mean 'assumption' and 'standard.'" You clarified "standard" by agreeing with my interpretation of it as something like the (original) standard used to determine the length called 1 meter. Principles are "first things" that define, determine, or explain (because we've figured out something about how the world works) the reason that something works the way it does. The standard for a meter is something that is assumed. It is not something like pi that is a discovered fact about space. A meter could be stretched or shortened, and as long as everybody agreed to the change it would still work. The length of a battleship or the width of a strip of photographic film or whatever is determined by applying the standard meter to the object to be measured. The length of the Battleship Missouri is not a standard of length. The standard of length is used to measure the ship. Right?

P0M:LaPlace's Third Principle of Probability states: "If events are independent of one another, the probability of their combined existence is the product of their respective probabilities." If you know this principle then you can figure out the probability of flipping three coins and getting three heads in a row. The principle of probability is not a feature of U.S. dimes, right?

P0M:Isn't this the way things work?

P0M 06:29, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * "How things work" is precisely a POV; different people -- scientists and non-scientists; social scientists and biolobical reductionists, and people at different times or in different places differ on "how things work." An NPOV account of race will provide as many POVs about "how things work" as are relevant to contextualize or explain the different.  People who reject "race" are rejecting it as a principle, much as most N. Americans reject the meter as a standard of measurement.  That does not mean that the meter (a social construction, in my opinion) is wrong.  It just means it is a standard that is not universally accepted.  Likewise, race is a standard that is not universally accepted.  Moreover, there were once debates over how long a meter actually should be.  That does not mean it was or is not a standard, just that there were once arguments over what the standard would be.  Similarly, for those who accept race as a standard, there are currently debates over how to define it.  I believe the article should represent all these POVs to be NPOV -- the POVs of people who accept it as a standard and those who reject it, and the POVs of different attempts (or sides in debates over how) to define "race" specifically (e.g., how does one recognize different races, what is the formal cause of race).  Slrubenstein

P0M: You are totally missing my point once again. You seem to glance off of it every time and attack something that I have not said and do not mean. Let me put my main point this way. :Bernier distinguished four races. Cuvier enumerated three races, Pritchard seven, Agassiz eight, and Pickering eleven. Blumenbach's classification was widely adopted." If you gave each of these authorities the same random sampling of the world's population, they would each segregate these people into races according to their own views. Each one of these authorities would presumably have a "standard" or a "definition" for inclusion in or exclusion from each of the racial categories that they espoused. So, in the diagram above, you go from categories (as defined by Dr. X, Y, or Z) to tagged individuals. It would be a stretch, but you could call these standards sets of "principles" (each set being defined differently by each of the various authorities). It is enormously POV to dignify these with the name "principle," so I would much prefer to call each of them a "category." But in only one case could you call "race" (singular) a principle, or even a rule of thumb for grouping people in a slap-dash way. The only way "race" (singular) could be a "principle" would be for it to be shorthand for "definition of membership in the human race". You can have a standard for what it is to be human. But you cannot have one standard for membership into multiple races.

P0M: A parallel would be the idea of "color." You cannot arrange samples of yarn by a principle or standard called "color", unless you are simply saying "this thing has color and that thing has no color." But you can arrange samples of yard by "colors". It happens that different groups of humans split the spectrum in different ways, so the example is more closely parallel than one might originally think. We can define colors in many different way, the most precise statement of what to consider "red" might be given in terms of a range of frequencies of light waves. So if we take 100 samples of monochromatic light and measure their frequencies we can then sort them into color groups. But we cannot get from the definition of color, e.g., "the frequency of any sample of light that is within the visible spectrum," to the determination of the color of a single beam of light. We need another level of definitions.

On Principle
P0M: You keep coming back to the importance of distinguishing between POV and NPOV. To me it is most extremely POV to enshrine "race" by calling it a principle. Look at the following list of principles:


 * The Principle of Least Action
 * The Principle of Equivalence
 * The Principle of Causality. Equal causes have equal effects.
 * The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
 * The Constitutional Principle of Separation of Church and State
 * The Principle of Induction
 * The Principle of the Mercantile System
 * Red Cross Red Crescent -- The fundamental principle of neutrality...
 * Tacitus: The Principle of Adoption. "Let the principle of my choice be shown not only by my connections which I have set aside for you, but by your own."
 * Jeremy Bentham:"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

P0M: All of these at least hold forth the promise of telling us "how things work" or "how things ought to work."

P0M: If there were added to the above list, "The Principle of Race," then what would be the nature of such a principle? "If you know the race of X then you know something about his/her intelligence." "If you know the race of X then you know something about his/her moral capacity." "If you know the race of X then you know something about his/her athletic abilities." "If you know the race of X then you know every important thing about him or her." Any of these might be brought forward as "The Principle of Race" by one person or another. Is that the kind of thing you think ought to be the center of this article? I sincerely hope not.


 * I am afraid you are missing my point: yes, you can organize yarn according to the principle of color, or according to other principles. For example, you can organize yarn according to the country of origin of the wool (or even, wool vs. synthetic).  You can organize it according to grade or texture.  You can organize it according length.  The same goes with ways of talking about and categorizing people.  I am not sure why you misunderstand me.  One possibility is that you have little experience with very different cultures that may organize yarn (or people) according to very different principles than the ones we use (if this is the case, I suggest starting with Foucault's The Order of Things on the social construction of categories and their underlying principles).  Another possibility is suggested by your editorializing language -- that I "enshrine" or "dignify" race by calling it a "principle."  Now, I am not committed to the principle -- but I do not see how calling something a "principle" in any way enshrines or dignifies it.  As I have said -- repeatedly and clearly (although if you have skimmed my contributions you may easily have missed this), a pinciple can be bad or wrong, and those who reject any discourse of race do so because it is a bad or wrong principle.  "Principles" need not be intrinsically true or good. Slrubenstein


 * [Peak:] Although you are correct that principle does have several meanings, the primary ones do in fact have "positive" meanings. Specifically, the first two definitions given in AHD are:


 * 1. A basic truth, law, or assumption: the principles of democracy.
 * 2a. A rule or standard, especially of good behavior: a man of principle.
 * b. The collectivity of moral or ethical standards or judgments: a decision
 * based on principle rather than expediency.


 * As has been mentioned before, the introductory paragraphs of an encyclopedic article should generally use ordinary words with a view to their ordinary meanings. That you can make sense of a particular sentence is simply not the point.


 * Another consideration is that when one uses the word principle', it is like using the word 'dollar' or 'explanation' - unless one uses a qualification such as 'counterfeit' or 'fake', the word is generally assumed to imply "the real thing". Peak 05:12, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

P0M:You just wrote: "You can organize yarn according to the principle of color", What, then, is the principle (singular) of color?
 * In this instance, the first variable according to which an object is classified. But you seem hung up on semantics. Why not say "race is a set of taxonomic (with a link to the article on taxonomy) criteria," or "race is a group ob beings organized according to a set of taxonomic criteria..." if you are so set on interpreting "principle" so narrowly? Slrubenstein

P0M: So a principle is a variable used for classification?


 * I am not going to get caught up in an argument about semantics. That is not what the talk pages are for.  I think I have made my point clearly.  I have also provided alternative phrasing that does not use the word principle. Slrubenstein

P0M: I'm just trying, still trying, to understand your syntax.


 * Oh, sorry. I looked up "syntax" in the dictionary.  It says, "The way in which words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences."  So, for the independent clause "Race is a taxonomic principle," "race" is a noun in the subject position, and "is a taxonomic principle" is the predicate consisting of an auxiliary verb (is) and a nominal phrase consisting of an indefinite article "a," an adjective (taxonomic) and noun (principle). ;) Slrubenstein

The alternative formulations seem to me to work well enough, as they do not frame the whole discussion in a way that privileges [race].

P0M: I am not trying to be sarcastic. You are presumably using a semantically coherent set of words, but you arrange them into sentences that are not coherent. You said:
 * Race is a group of beings organized according to a set of taxonomic criteria.

but also
 * Race is a taxonomic principle.

P0M: The problem is that one of your definitions indicates that the word "race" points to a group of beings, and another of your definitions indicates that the word "race" points to a principle.

P0M: I am sorry to be dogged in the pursuit of this issue, but you did suggest that one day the tide would turn on the fate of the wording you prefer. As George Orwell pointed out, words, meanings, and the way they are combined can have very powerful social effects.
 * You are right about the inconsistency. The first definition above should be "A race is a group ..."  And if you prefer, in the second ("Race is a taxonomic ...") you can put the word race in scare-quotes, to indicate that the word is refering to a concept rather than a material thing (though some would consider that unnecessary). Slrubenstein