Is race a valid concept?

[Mikemikev]

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Moderator Note

Please stop these intellectually dishonest tactics. You brought up Marx (in a very weird way), and now you're accusing others of doing it to obstruct the discussion. Persistent use of this and other fallacies to "win" an argument are against the rules you agreed to when you joined.

 

If you have a problem with our rules, Report this post but don't discuss it here.

You think you get to slander me when my opponent is clearly being intellectually dishonest, then tell me I can't respond?

 

I see you've colluded with the other mod. What intellectual cowards.

Edited June 1, 2016 by Mikemikev

[Strange]

Your assertion is a complete non sequitur and makes no sense.

 

I'm sorry you failed to understand. I thought it would be obvious to someone of your outstanding intellectual capacities.

 

The reason that "population" is a more useful concept is that it allows us to look at a wider range of traits such as lactose tolerance (of different types), fur colour, ear size, etc. It would not, as you say, make any sense to describe these groupings as "races" but any such population can be studied to understand their ancestry, how those traits coexist with others, how they may affect susceptibility to disease or effectiveness of treatments, and even things like intelligence and educational achievement (1).

 

Is that clearer?

 

(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210287/

Edited June 1, 2016 by Strange

[Mikemikev]

I'm sorry you failed to understand. I thought it would be obvious to someone of your outstanding intellectual capacities.

 

The reason that "population" is a more useful concept is that it allows us to look at a wider range of traits such as lactose tolerance (of different types), fur colour, ear size, etc. It would not, as you say, make any sense to describe these groupings as "races" but any such population can be studied to understand their ancestry, how those traits coexist with others, how they may affect susceptibility to disease or effectiveness of treatments, and even things like intelligence and educational achievement (1).

 

Is that clearer?

 

(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210287/

By the same logic "thing" is a more useful concept. I fail to see how this adds anything to the discussion other than time wasting nonsense.

[Strange]

By the same logic "thing" is a more useful concept.

 

Can you explain the logic behind that statement?

 

Or do you mean that now you would call lactose tolerance a race?

Edited June 1, 2016 by Strange

[Mikemikev]

Can you explain the logic behind that statement?

 

Or do you mean that now you would call lactose tolerance a race?

I'm now 100% certain that you are deliberately trolling this thread. Shame on you, and shame on the mods for attacking me.

[Strange]

I don't understand. Either a genetic grouping of interest is a race or we need an alternative name for that grouping.

 

You say these groupings are not races, therefore "population" seems like a good choice. (We could go with your other suggestion of "thing" but it may be too late.)

[Phi for All]

I'm now 100% certain that you are deliberately trolling this thread. Shame on you, and shame on the mods for attacking me.

 

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Moderator Note

More intellectually dishonest tactics. We prefer evidence to support extraordinary claims. It's in the rules you agreed to.

 

Enforcing the rules is not an attack. More rigor on your part is needed.

[Mikemikev]

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Moderator Note

More intellectually dishonest tactics. We prefer evidence to support extraordinary claims. It's in the rules you agreed to.

 

Enforcing the rules is not an attack. More rigor on your part is needed.

Abusing moderator status to attack someone with a POV you don't like, and threatening to ban them, is one of the worst kinds of intellectually dishonest tactic. Your objections are completely without merit, and I've shown more intellectual rigor than most of my "race does not exist" opponents, including yourself. I'm just waiting for those with anything of value, such as Arete and CharonY, rather than abusive POV mods and trolls.

[Saxon]

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).

Edited June 1, 2016 by Saxon

[StringJunky]

Abusing moderator status to attack someone with a POV you don't like, and threatening to ban them, is one of the worst kinds of intellectually dishonest tactic. Your objections are completely without merit, and I've shown more intellectual rigor than most of my "race does not exist" opponents, including yourself. I'm just waiting for those with anything of value, such as Arete and CharonY, rather than abusive POV mods and trolls.

Here, have a bigger spade... I am at loss as to why you continue.

Edited June 1, 2016 by StringJunky

[Arete]

There's a lot of needless hostility in this thread, at least I personally would appreciate a more civil tone.

 

I think we need to work through some basic principles:

 

1) In biology, both race and population have precise meanings which potentially differ from their lay meanings. Race is generally used to describe groups of organisms which share a distinct chromosomal arrangement. Population is generally used to describe a group of interbreeding, genetically related organisms. With humans, we are generally chromosomally monotypic, so in the biological sense, the appropriate word to use when describing genetically distinct groups would be populations, not races. There's no ideological, political or other agenda at work, just standard use of terminology in science.

 

2) Genetic diversity arises through the incremental accumulation of mutations, over generations, through time. This means that genetic differentiation between organisms, in the broad sense, ranges from genetically identical (e.g. a bacterial colony) through to the diversity we see across the tree of life. As the accumulation of changes is incremental, organisms exist in a multitude of intermediate states between extremes - this renders any classification system, be it be it on the scale of taxonomic, biogeographic, population or landscape partitioning, arbitrary. N.B. This is not to say that they are not useful, or systematically and scientifically defined, but it is important to note that any classification system is a simplification of the biological reality, and inherently imperfect.

 

3) The arbitrary nature of defining populations means that there is no universally correct way to do this. Determining discrete units will depend on the biology of the organisms in question (e.g. mutation rate, generation time, mode of reproduction, etc), the scale of the study (global, regional, local) and the resolution of the genetic data being used (e.g. microsatellites, SNPs, 12s sequencing). So long at the partitioning scheme is empirically based, justifiable within the given aims of the study and uses an a prioi, unbiased method, it's generally valid.

 

4) This has been done several times for humans. The generally used method as per Rosenberg et al. Is to run K means clustering using an MCMC algorithm at various values of K, then use some sort of information criterion to determine the most informative value for K. You could also use model based clustering, PCA based clustering, or hierarchical clustering - or preferably a combination.

 

5) The clusters in Rosenberg et al. are generally speaking, broadly accepted - if these are what you're referring to as "races" then I really think there's little controversy, apart from lack of precision in the term you've chosen to use in the context of biological communication.

[imatfaal]

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Moderator Note

 

Mikemikev

 

1. Scienceforums.net is not a public body and is not bound by any obligation to allow free speech - you have been allowed a platform to discuss science and I think you have abused that privilege. That you have an outside agenda is obvious and that ulterior motivation is obnoxious to me and, I believe, the spirit and membership of SFN; so whilst we will continue to allow such discussions when they deal with science we will rapidly stamp down on them once they stray from science to soap-boxing. Your posts are increasingly sounding like the words of a soap-box speaker shouting-down and mocking those who disagree.

 

2. You seem to believe you can insult the membership with impunity - this is incorrect. You also seem to believe that you are the victim here - this is also incorrect. From my reading of the threads you have been involved in - you have been told you are incorrect, it has been stated that your arguments are unsupported and unsupportable, your assertions have been refuted, and referenced evidence has been brought to bear to support the counter argument to yours; in response - admittedly few posts from many - you have called the membership moronic and called the staff biased and intellectually dishonest. This is against the rules.

 

3. A regular feature of your posting is the use of logical fallacies - you might want to look up the definitions of a few of the more obvious ones as you have been misusing the term ad hominem.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index . The use of logical fallacies is also banned by the rules

 

4. You have also accused the membership of the use of logical fallacies to avoid answering their questions, to argue moderation notes, and to bolster your own point. This is sophistry - an avoidance of substantive debate and also not allowed.

 

5. We also prefer it if members do not publicly argue with moderation notes - I am fairly sure I have seen you told this on at least one occasion.

 

 

You have broken numerous rules and our patience has grown thin. The staff have decided to suspend your posting privileges for three days. I will be locking this thread for this period as you are the OP and it will allow you to take some time to deal with the excellent points already raised in refutation of your argument.