Talk:Race and society/Archive 1

subspecies?
This article introduces the idea of different human races as subspecies. I have never heard any serious scholar suggest that different races constitute different subspecies, or even that such a model is useful. Does anyone have a source for this? --Allen 00:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sources will always be nice. AucamanTalk 01:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that this may be a semantic issue more than a substantive issue. I do not recall any serious researcher since Carleton S. Coon in the mid-60s refering to different human populations as "subspecies." (For example of Coon's usage, see the map at craniofacial anthropometry in phylogeography). But the point of the sentence, I think, is that whether you call them "ethnicitites," "endogamous groups," "populations," "varieties," "breeds," "clines," "clusters," "races," or what-have-you, it is often coventient to hypothesize groups in order to study social phenomena. If it were up to me, I would reword the paragraph thus:

"Historians, anthropologists and social scientists often describe human 'races' as a social construct, preferring instead the term 'population,' which can be given a clear operational definition. Even many of those who reject the formal concept of 'race,' however, still use the word in day-to-day speech. This may be an effect of the underlying cultural significance of 'race' in racist societies. Regardless of the term used, a working concept of population grouping can be useful, because in the absence of cheap and widespread genetic tests, various group-linked gene mutations (see Cystic fibrosis, Lactose intolerance, Tay-Sachs Disease and Sickle cell anemia) are difficult to address without recourse to a category between 'individual' and 'species'. As genetic tests for such conditions become cheaper, and as detailed haplotype maps and SNP databases become available, the need to resort to 'race' should diminish. This is fortunate, as increasing interracial marriage in the United States is reducing the predictive power of 'race' in the United States. For example, most babies born with Tay-Sachs in North America at present are not from Jewish families, despite stereotypes to contrary. -- Frank W Sweet 02:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)"

Casta paintings and the like
I'm adding this topic to the Talk pages for the main race article as well. There should be some kind of subarticle on the casta concept and paintings from the era of Spanish and Portuguese control of Latin America. This is a well-known area of Latin American art and there are whole books on the topic. The paintings seem to have been an attempt at a racial version of a biological taxonomy, purporting to show what different racial combinations looked like and assigning each a name. Typically, the paintings had at least 16 categories, though some had more.

I am adding this issue to the Talk pages of three different related articles in hopes of prodding someone more knowledgeable to give this article a shot. I personally know only a little, having been introduced to the subject by a web site I've long since misplaced and an art exhibition here in Dallas (probably at the Meadows Museum of Art, which specializes in Latin-American art).Lawikitejana 20:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is patently untrue
"What occurs in Brazil that differentiates it largely from the US or South Africa, for example, is that black or mixed-race people are, in fact, more accepted in social circles if they have more education..."

There are few neighborhoods in the US, save perhaps some in the deep south, where a black man with a college education and a six figure income isn't considered socially acceptable in "white" circles. Whoever wrote this either lives in a backward community or has some racial issues him or herself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DotsyMe (talk • contribs) 22:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

This article needs to be merged into another article.
As previous editor comments have suggested, this article reads like an article fork to push a point of view, and has sourcing problems. I invite editors to look at the source list I am continually updating on this topic, to see what current sources say. I'll look for places to merge this article. Your suggestions about how to fix the problem will be much appreciated. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 12:47, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute
See this deletion of opposing views.Miradre (talk) 13:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If you think it is too long we could just include Lynn's view in order to get some balance.Miradre (talk) 13:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the section is to show how social interpretations of race affect the understanding of the R&I question. Not to simply rehash the two different sides. Fish is given as an example of a social approach to the R&I question - he doesn't need to be contradicted here as long as it is made clear that his view is not the only one.·Maunus· ƛ · 13:24, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No Wikipedia article is a POV-fork for one side the debate. If you want to make it really short, we can just add, "For an opposing view, see the article Race differences in intelligence Or we could move the whole discussion with specific arguments to the race and intelligence article.Miradre (talk) 13:32, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This is not POV forking it is making a section relevant in relation to its topic. There is a link to the main R&I article that treats both sides extensively.·Maunus· ƛ · 13:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I do tend to agree that this entire article is a POV fork that would best be merged into the main article on Race (classification of humans).·Maunus· ƛ · 13:53, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Also summaries of other articles should be npov. Either make it very general and exclude this this very specific argument, or if we include this specific argument, then we should present an opposing view. Currently the main R&I article does not mention this argument or an opposing view.Miradre (talk) 13:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The section is not meant to be a summary of the R&I article, it is meant to show how social interpretations of race relate to the R&I debate.·Maunus· ƛ · 14:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If it is an important argument we should have it in the R&I article, not here primarily.Miradre (talk) 14:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The current Race (classification of humans) article is already extremely long and should if anything be drastically pruned.Miradre (talk) 13:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Brazil vs. US
Jefferson Fish has argued that race is a social rather than a biological concept and that the question of racial differences in intelligence is not a scientific one. '''For example, one might want to compare black-white IQ differences in Brazil with those in the United States. Since many people who are considered black in the U. S. would not be considered black in Brazil, and since many people who are considered white in Brazil would not be considered white in the U. S., such a comparison is not possible.'''
 * First, it was removed because it was not sourced. Second, it is a false straw man, no one has argued that average US IQ racial scores apply to any race in Brazil. As such, it should again be removed.Miradre (talk) 12:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It is sourced to Fish's article. (EDITCONFLICT) Also it is not a strawman it is a perfect example that one cannot say anything about the IQ of "black"s in general as many authors do, because being Black means something different in different places. This is a perfect example of why race is a social not a biological construction. ·Maunus· ƛ · 12:22, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It was not when I removed it. The second point still applies.Miradre (talk) 12:22, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, you modified you statement. Now you are making a different argument from what the text states. What the text states is a straw man, no one has argued for such a comparison or that US races are equivalent to those in Brazil. Your second, own argument is irrelevant for how example Lynn defines races. His definition is not based on current social classifications but on ancestral homes.Miradre (talk) 12:34, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It is 100% irrelevant whether you find his argument convincing or not. He makes the argument, others make the argument therefore it is not "dubious". But just for fun: How does Lynn propose to define the "ancestral home" of Barack Obama or Pelé? And how does he get data that isn't based on selfidentification?·Maunus· ƛ · 12:44, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have added an opposing view instead. Obama like most almost all US blacks would be a mixture of several races/ancestral populations, although for US blacks predominantly from Africa. One can determine admixture proportions from current populations by genetic analysis.Miradre (talk) 13:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * So why is Obama black if he is genetically half white? And who made a genetioc analysis on him? And where did Lynn get genetic data about the worlds populations?·Maunus· ƛ · 13:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, ancestral populations have nothing to do with current social classifications and personal views. They are biological facts. Obama and others may see him in whatever way they like, this does not change his ancestry. There has been numerous genetic studies done on the world's population. Lynn used the ancestral populations from Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., P. Menozzi, A. Piazza. 1994. "The History and Geography of Human Genes".Miradre (talk) 13:14, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Then he is just using the word "race" to describe what others would call genetic populations.·Maunus· ƛ · 13:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What other would call ancestral populations/ancestral origin is more correct.Miradre (talk) 13:35, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Could someone enlighten me on what this thread is about? Is it about whether a text by Jefferson Fish is reliable for this article? If so, which of his works are we discussing? Itsmejudith (talk) 13:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * At the moment the question is more if we should include an alternative, biological view of race.Miradre (talk) 13:37, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that would be off topic. However I agree with the poster in the thread above. This article should be merged, and I would say the natural place for it is to go back into Race. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:52, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The race article is already extremely long. Adding this article + about as much opposing views would make it ridiculous, likely the longest in Wikipedia by a mile.Miradre (talk) 13:59, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There are lots of ways to split an overlong article, but point of view is not one of them. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Article needs redoing or deleting
This is a good example of a bad article, All POV and no citations for anything after the first section, will someone redo or delete this article as it doesn't measure up to encyclopedic standards in it's current form, it's mostly unsourced opinion and POV. 90.193.39.149 (talk) 16:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed, much of this article reads like a first year sociology paper rather than an encyclopedia entry. Sxoa (talk) 06:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Looking over things more carefully and considering many of the issues on the discussion page are years old I'm putting a rewrite tag tag at the top. AS stated previously large swathes of the article are unsourced opinion and POV Sxoa (talk) 06:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

This looks more like a 4th year sociology paper. The facts are the facts. If you don't like them, write yourself you're own 'scholarly entry'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.171.51.164 (talk) 13:32, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Citations list useful for updating this article and related articles
You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Anthropology and Human Biology Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human genetics and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library system at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to other academic libraries in the same large metropolitan area) and have been researching these issues sporadically since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human genetics to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:11, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

This article is a POV fork
This article is not about "Race and society". It appears to have been high jacked by "race realists" and turned into a POV fork of the main race article. Is there anything worth keeping or should it just be dumped and redirected? — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 17:42, 22 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I see that this article is subject to the discretionary sanctions from a previous ArbCom case. It does look like the article is poorly situated among other Wikipedia articles on related topics to really add any value for readers. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 01:37, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Race and society. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060207222529/http://quickfacts.census.gov:80/qfd/meta/long_68178.htm to http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68178.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 15:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Move/merge discussion at Talk:Miscegenation
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Miscegenation regarding moving content from that article to several new articles, and merging out some of the rest. The current article has >150 kB prose. - LaTeeDa (talk) 16:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Objections to cutting Race and intelligence section?
This section borrows heavily from former iterations of the main article Race and intelligence, which has been substantially improved since then. I would be happy to update the section to reflect current consensus over there, but I also wonder whether it even fits in this article. It really doesn't say much about society as written and it seems dubious to me that WP:RS exist to fix that. Thoughts? Generalrelative (talk) 22:40, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Having not heard an objection to this since posting over a week ago, I'll go ahead with the edit. Generalrelative (talk) 18:37, 20 July 2020 (UTC)