Saxon

Here's national IQ scores (using data from three sources): http://www.photius.com/rankings/national_iq_scores_country_ranks.html Sierre Leone is 91 above several south-east European countries (Croatia: 90, Albania: 90, Serbia: 89). Supposedly this is meant to be Mikemikev's speciality topic, but he doesn't even know the data. UK IQ is 100 (see link above). Now why should the English, Scots, Welsh be lumped with Serbs as "white" who are 11 points lower in IQ? That's why race doesn't make any sense. Even Mikemikev admits there is enormous variation in each race. I just see this variation as too much to make racial classification valid. How do you explain the low IQs of certain isolated hunter-gather populations? Prior to European colonisation these peoples were hunter-gatherers with lack of civilization (and they still are), so you cannot blame this on "racial discrimination".

Mikemikev repeatedly claims race is defined as genetic similarity or ancestry, so that any population is a race. This is just something he made up. No science source is ever provided. Mayr was mentioned in this thread and he never defined race how Mikemikev does. Ernst Mayr defined geographical races (subspecies) as follows: "a geographically defined aggregate of local populations that differ taxonomically from other such subdivisions of the species". (O' Brien & Mayr, 1991) See how Mayr doesn't define race as a local population, but as an aggregate or large grouping of local populations. So as Mayr understood race, local breeding populations like ethnic groups per se are not subspecies (geographical races).

Yes good point and note you cannot find in Blumenbach, or any other 18th-19th century race theorist them calling local breeding populations such as south or north Welsh "races". So the person actually changing the definition of race is Mikemikev. Race was never used to describe local breeding populations. Who has ever called the Amish people a "race"?

Yet, even if race = panmictic population, you still end up with a different racial classification to what you are proposing. A panmictic population would be an ethnic group. "Black" and "White" are not ethnic groups.

Mikemikev needs to explain why Sierra Leone and several other Sub-Saharan African countries have higher national IQ's than some European countries (e.g. Albania, Serbia). There is no global IQ pattern.

Reproductively isolated populations are genetically discontinuous from others. This shows in Tishkoff et al for the Hazda. The problem though is that no one considers Hazda (who number less than 1000 individuals) a race, so there is a mismatch objection to calling them a race.

There's two PCA's: global data set and African data set from Tishkoff. You've already seen these images. Sub-Saharan African populations blend smoothly into Saharan (North) Africans, the latter with the closest West Eurasian populations. There is no "Caucasoid"/"Negroid" divide in Africa. North Africa is connected to West Asia. There is no geographical barrier; the Sinai peninsula has always been a 'corridor' between the two continents. Also the Strait of Gibraltar which separates Spain from Africa is only a short distance, it has always been crossed both directions (Vandals, Moors, etc.) The Mediterranean Sea has never been a strong barrier to gene flow.

If you read Tishkoff et al, there is a full list of the 121 African populations. Your plot has only about 10. If your plot included the 111 African missing populations, you would see the smooth gradient running through Africa into Eurasia. All these populations are connected via gene flow, even if only by modest amounts - so it makes no sense to argue there is genetic discontinuity. The only genetic discontinuity you find in Tishkoff is with two hunter-gatherer populations, e.g. Hazda, San. This is because they are reproductively isolated. If you want to call those "races" than that is fine, but this means the races of the world are small isolated breeding populations like the Hazda, not your idea of continental races like "Caucasoids" or "Mongoloids" of billions of individuals.

There is no genetic divide between Africa and Eurasia. See Tishkoff et al 2009 who used 121 African population samples and 60 Eurasian population samples. What you see is a smooth genetic gradient between these two continents. Therefore racial classification is arbitrary.

Yes, its real nonsense your plot only samples 10 African populations where there are hundreds. See Tishkoff et al 2009 who sampled 121 African populations. Why are you quoting a study with only 10 African populations? Because when you use few population samples you create false genetic divides (that are filled when more populations are sampled). It's obvious for everyone to see you have confirmation bias.

Human variation is a genetic continuum. Note the plot Mikemikev uploads misses many global populations - so what it is doing is inserting false divides into the continuum. Mikemikev then turns around and says these gaps are the racial divides. It's fallacious. I have a study from 2009 which samples over 100 populations from Africa alone. The plot Mikemikev posts has only about 10 African populations. As soon as you increase the population samples, all the gaps disappear.

There are not 18 ethnic groups in Tang's samples. They only have: White American (non-Hispanic white), African-American (non-Hispanic black), Hispanic, and Taiwanese. However, Hispanic is not an ethnic group. Although they point out those that self-identified as Hispanic were Mexican. How exactly does this prove race? There is no continental clustering of "major races".

Cavalli-Sforza's The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994) is still used as a standard reference text on human population genetics. Its useful as an introduction to the topic. Sforza explains why there are human panmictic populations (i.e. ethnic groups) but not races. It's on google books, check pages 19-21. If Tang et al took many more samples across the globe, what they would find is there is no genetic clustering at the continental level, so no such thing as race. Taiwanese for example do not cluster with Japanese. Denying race does not mean denying different human populations exist. Although racialists love to set up that straw man.

Tang et al covered ethnic groups, not "races". The ethnic samples in their study were: White-Americans, African-Americans and Taiwanese. If they had taken samples from ethnic Basques, Somalis and Japanese you would end up with different genetic clusters i.e. Basques and White Americans are not a genetic cluster, but separate. African-Americans and Somalis are not a genetic cluster, but separate. Taiwanese and Japanese are not a genetic cluster, but separate. This is why race (white, black, Asian) has no scientific validity. i.e. Basques and White Americans are "white", yet this whiteness has no use to genetics because these ethnic groups do not cluster together, nor do Somalis and African-Americans etc who are "black".