Would it be right to change the concept of race?

[Spectral]

Depends on how you define race, personally I dont see any purpose in the social correctiveness in saying that there are no human races.

Sorry to snip a good, long post into a bite size morsel, but I think the reason you're not understanding the purpose is exactly that - you don't understand the goal of people that have pushed the, "there are no races" ideology. The origins of this are an attempt, for better or worse, to push egalitarianism and equalism. The good side of this motivation is something I very much believe in - no one should be put down for their race, no race should be discriminated against, and so on. Claiming there's literally no definable biological concept of race on the other hand - that's just outright science denialism.

[Techno-Druid]

No one's claiming that races are separate species (well, at least not these days). That half percent where genomes differ is enormous when we're talking about variance within a single species. Whether you want to call those distinct groups "races" or some other term doesn't really matter - there was sufficient geographic isolation during human evolution to create groups with identifiable characteristics that are easy to see and can now be confirmed with genetic evidence.

I don't think you understand genetics and variation well enough to extend the first statement into that claim regarding there being no grounds for the use of race. Well, actually I'll go a bit farther - you have no idea what you're talking about and you're just spouting talking points coupled with a study that you don't understand.

That there is significant overlap between populations on individual phenotypes doesn't, in any way, imply that there are not distinct, identifiable groups.

- - - Updated - - -


I don't really know why people think, "that's a social construct" means that it's not also a biological reality. That's silly. Yes, there's a socially constructed version of race that comes with all sorts of hangups, assumptions, stereotypes, and actions. There's also an observable biological reality that there are human populations that evolved in largely distinct regions with minimal overlap for enough time to produce groups that can be genetically identified; the results are easily visible and create some obvious and biologically important differences. Sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, and Vitamin D deficiency aren't social constructs.

Minimal overlap is an overstatement, admixture wasn't historically or prehistorically uncommon. We are all Homo sapiens sapiens. Genetic identification means little in the way I could genetically identify someone from France as different from someone from Sweden. We all have the basic set of genes and only 70 out of a million differences present themselves in the entire human race. This is not to say biological race doesn't exist, it does, but social race is much more than just stereotypes and is inaccurate of describing human diversity. What Juv's point is I believe is that race as defined in other species is not the same on how we use race to describe mitochondrial differences and minor mutations in humankind.

[Exception]

O_O are people mistaking race with species? We are the human species, there is no such thing as the human race.
Orcs and draenei arent different races, they are different species. Blood elves and high elves are different races of the same species.

Depends on how you define race, personally I dont see any purpose in the social correctiveness in saying that there are no human races. If we assign race to an animal, say a dog, due to variation in coloration of their fur, there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't apply the same to humans.
Saying that all humans are alike and that there are no biological differences is also incorrect.

While we all have a common ancestor, there are different mixes from our ancestor hominods, say cro magnon, neanderthal and denisovan.
Our physiology is also slightly different, while you can encounter the entire range of human variation inside a single race in terms of physical attributes, the truth is that each "race" tends towards an area and its majority will have specific characteristics.

There are other differences, mixed race kids have higher chance if being stillborn, have more health issues (and you thought they would have less didnt you? im mixed race, i know sadly), for example have fun finding donors (organs/bone marrow) for mixed race kids. Higher rates of depression and so forth.

Different races also react differently to medicine, a specific medicine that works wonders in a white population wont work that great in a black population, even within ethnicities (sub-divisions of race) can have differences, for example middle easterners are Caucasian, but a different ethnicity of Caucasian, just as Nordics are a different ethnicity of Caucasian from Mediterraneans.

Each race/ethnicity will also carry different genetic markers, which can be used to identify the persons ethnicity and race, they also have unique diseases, say sickle cell anemia in African descendants, an evolutionary adaptation to Malaria.
Our skins are different due to different exposures to light (or lack of) as we evolved, but that is enough to make that a Black person moving to northern areas will have higher rate of depression, violence, etc , and a white person moving to southern areas, higher rate of skin cancer, eyesight issues, lethargy, etc (in a global scale)

Certain genes are more present in specific races, say the Warrior Gene, so called because it creates different reactions to stress for those who have it and those who dont have it.
You can identify someones race based on their bones, you can identify someones race based on their musculature, hormonal profile, hair and so forth.
One can go on and on and on about this, humans can be distinguished as races, this is not a social construct, this is a biological reality and to ignore this because there have been really shit studies in the past mired in biases and racism, it also creates a lot of issues, social issues, identity issues and most important, medical issues, as we pretend there are no differences so we pretend that a medication tested in a majority homogeneous population will work in everyone, or we throw away a really good medicine that happens to only work in say, black people, because on average it has low efficiency because the test subject group was highly diverse.

Hell, humans even have different smells based on race, babies can discern race (although they wont have prejudice, as those are social influences).
So I dont know... i think that trying to be politically correct causes more harm than good, it creates false myths, it prevents real science and real research, because people are afraid of specific areas of difference and how it can be used to excuse really bad ideas (eugenics, genocide etc).

Then on top of races, you have cultural memes, your culture could be compared to an OS, it defines all your subroutines, how you react to a specific situation, how to behave in specific areas, towards specific people, what is right, what is wrong, what is adequate punishment/consequence, what is causative of such punishment/consequence... it gets complicated, complex, and people turn a blind eye to this, politicians especially afraid to lose popularity because the population is busy pretending everyone is the same, and then we have situations that are badly handled and the current social instability all over the place.

Imo, harmony comes from respect, to have respect we have to acknowledge differences first and foremost, to ignore them is what creates conflict, as there is no basis for respect.

You are missing the point here. How we defince race is based on mainly vague cultural factors, not on the real biological genetical differences. I still don't see any need to change this, in the realm of culture, however.

[Dezerte]

It is about reducing racial tensions. If instead of saying "That black guy" or "Those asians", you remove the racial connotation by referring to these two examples without that classification. It's not about protecting people's feelings, it's about reducing hostility between us - social engineering.

Science, health and biology can still keep these classifications because there they are relevant. But in everyday life, 'race' is arguably a detriment to promoting unity and peace with each other.

Thank you for contributing to this thread sir/ma'am.

I'm a sir. :3

[Endus]

"Race" as a concept is a social construct.

Yes, there are identifiable characteristics that can distinguish groups physically, but that's true of families, too; you can tell that I'm my father's son because of the similarity of our DNA. That's not really a distinct difference that "matters", in any biological sense, it just means you can identify a closer familial relationship.

That's what racial distinctions are; I'm mostly of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon stock, but that just means that other Celts are closer distant cousins than someone of African origin would be. We're all still related, the common ancestor's just a little further back.

This gets muddied even further when you recognize that ethnicities aren't distinct groups, but bleed into and across those lines regularly, both in the modern age and historically. The chance of anyone being ethnically "pure" is vanishingly tiny, and basically only really exists among those few groups who are still not part of modern society and who are hostile to all outsiders or located so remotely they cannot be feasibly approached with any regularity; there's an tribe in the Amazon or two, and a group on an island in the Indian Ocean that I can think of, but these are tiny, tiny groups. Everyone else is a mix of some sort.

That's why "race" is a bollocks concept. Individuals don't fit the categories very well, and the categories aren't distinct. That said, it has social meaning, and until people stop talking about it and engaging in hateful behaviour as a result of it, we can't get rid of it.

The genetic markers have no value in asserting anything, other than the curiosity as to where your ancestors were primarily from, at best.

[Dezerte]

I take it you yourself removed all the links to the sources/citations? :P

Yeah, it looks less cluttered this way. Here's the link anyhow.

[Techno-Druid]

O_O are people mistaking race with species? We are the human species, there is no such thing as the human race.
Orcs and draenei arent different races, they are different species. Blood elves and high elves are different races of the same species.

Depends on how you define race, personally I dont see any purpose in the social correctiveness in saying that there are no human races. If we assign race to an animal, say a dog, due to variation in coloration of their fur, there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't apply the same to humans.
Saying that all humans are alike and that there are no biological differences is also incorrect.

While we all have a common ancestor, there are different mixes from our ancestor hominods, say cro magnon, neanderthal and denisovan.
Our physiology is also slightly different, while you can encounter the entire range of human variation inside a single race in terms of physical attributes, the truth is that each "race" tends towards an area and its majority will have specific characteristics.

There are other differences, mixed race kids have higher chance if being stillborn, have more health issues (and you thought they would have less didnt you? im mixed race, i know sadly), for example have fun finding donors (organs/bone marrow) for mixed race kids. Higher rates of depression and so forth.

Different races also react differently to medicine, a specific medicine that works wonders in a white population wont work that great in a black population, even within ethnicities (sub-divisions of race) can have differences, for example middle easterners are Caucasian, but a different ethnicity of Caucasian, just as Nordics are a different ethnicity of Caucasian from Mediterraneans.

Each race/ethnicity will also carry different genetic markers, which can be used to identify the persons ethnicity and race, they also have unique diseases, say sickle cell anemia in African descendants, an evolutionary adaptation to Malaria.
Our skins are different due to different exposures to light (or lack of) as we evolved, but that is enough to make that a Black person moving to northern areas will have higher rate of depression, violence, etc , and a white person moving to southern areas, higher rate of skin cancer, eyesight issues, lethargy, etc (in a global scale)

Certain genes are more present in specific races, say the Warrior Gene, so called because it creates different reactions to stress for those who have it and those who dont have it.
You can identify someones race based on their bones, you can identify someones race based on their musculature, hormonal profile, hair and so forth.
One can go on and on and on about this, humans can be distinguished as races, this is not a social construct, this is a biological reality and to ignore this because there have been really shit studies in the past mired in biases and racism, it also creates a lot of issues, social issues, identity issues and most important, medical issues, as we pretend there are no differences so we pretend that a medication tested in a majority homogeneous population will work in everyone, or we throw away a really good medicine that happens to only work in say, black people, because on average it has low efficiency because the test subject group was highly diverse.

Hell, humans even have different smells based on race, babies can discern race (although they wont have prejudice, as those are social influences).
So I dont know... i think that trying to be politically correct causes more harm than good, it creates false myths, it prevents real science and real research, because people are afraid of specific areas of difference and how it can be used to excuse really bad ideas (eugenics, genocide etc).

Then on top of races, you have cultural memes, your culture could be compared to an OS, it defines all your subroutines, how you react to a specific situation, how to behave in specific areas, towards specific people, what is right, what is wrong, what is adequate punishment/consequence, what is causative of such punishment/consequence... it gets complicated, complex, and people turn a blind eye to this, politicians especially afraid to lose popularity because the population is busy pretending everyone is the same, and then we have situations that are badly handled and the current social instability all over the place.

Imo, harmony comes from respect, to have respect we have to acknowledge differences first and foremost, to ignore them is what creates conflict, as there is no basis for respect.

Edit: adding some sources, as what i just said probably goes against the general meme.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2867623/
http://www.ncb.org.uk/news/challenge...n-the-uk-today
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15994621
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22776059
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Denisovans.jpg
http://www.ncb.org.uk/news/challenge...n-the-uk-today
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topic...e-and-race-744
http://www.physanth.org/about/positi...-aspects-race/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11172830

There is tons of information out there, people just refuse to see, they think that pretending everyone is the same will solve problems, imo, its whats causing a lot of them.

Let's say you are correct (not saying you are or aren't), but wouldn't that make multiracial people dominate because of the principles of hybrid vigor? Farmers cross two strains of corn together, the offspring results in larger, more healthy corn. That is hybrid vigor.

[Techno-Druid]

It is about reducing racial tensions. If instead of saying "That black guy" or "Those asians", you remove the racial connotation by referring to these two examples without that classification. It's not about protecting people's feelings, it's about reducing hostility between us - social engineering.

Science, health and biology can still keep these classifications because there they are relevant. But in everyday life, 'race' is arguably a detriment to promoting unity and peace with each other.



I'm a sir. :3

I wish I could upvote/light posts like this.

[Deleted]

Let's say you are correct (not saying you are or aren't), but wouldn't that make multiracial people dominate because of the principles of hybrid vigor? Farmers cross two strains of corn together, the offspring results in larger, more healthy corn. That is hybrid vigor.

Hybrid vigor isn't often a thing. Hybrids between horses and donkeys often turn out with a lot of problems. We had some problems in a river here because of hybdrids as well, where some of the fishes there became almost unable to reproduce because of the hybrids not being compatible with them.

[Spectral]

And what if i am?

I grew up in a religiturd environment, and i will likely not lose the "hellfire and damnation" aspect to my observances.

I guess you just shouldn't be real surprised when other people see your intensely adversarial response to nothing in particular as marking you as kind of a jerk.

[Exception]

It is about reducing racial tensions. If instead of saying "That black guy" or "Those asians", you remove the racial connotation by referring to these two examples without that classification. It's not about protecting people's feelings, it's about reducing hostility between us - social engineering.

No, the concept of race is not what creates racism and it would be silly to think so. Do you think racist people will stop being racist just because the concept of race would become more akin to the real geneological differences? It won't, the only thing it'll do is to hinder the discussion on racism by invalidating a large portion of it.

[Deleted]

It is about reducing racial tensions. If instead of saying "That black guy" or "Those asians", you remove the racial connotation by referring to these two examples without that classification. It's not about protecting people's feelings, it's about reducing hostility between us - social engineering.

Not sure how this contributes to tension. It's descriptive. I don't get pissed if someone says "that blonde girl over there" if I'm surrounded by people who have brown hair, makes it easy to tell who I am from the others who have brown hair.

[Techno-Druid]

Hybrid vigor isn't often a thing. Hybrids between horses and donkeys often turn out with a lot of problems. We had some problems in a river here because of hybdrids as well, where some of the fishes there became almost unable to reproduce because of the hybrids not being compatible with them.

Horses and donkeys are not of the same species, all anatomically modern humans are.

[Dezerte]

No, the concept of race is not what creates racism and it would be silly to think so. Do you think racist people will stop being racist just because the concept of race would become more akin to the real geneological differences? It won't, the only thing it'll do is to hinder the discussion on racism by invalidating a large portion of it.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't misrepresent what I said.

[Spectral]

I'd appreciate it if you didn't misrepresent what I said.

Would you mind clarifying a bit? I took from your post largely what Exception took, but I don't want to misread you.

[Deleted]

Horses and donkeys are not of the same species, all anatomically modern humans are.

I'm aware of this but you were talking about hybrid vigor. It often isn't a thing. There's no real benefits to hybrids most of the time, in some cases it can even be detrimental if a population lives in an area where they've developped a natural immunity to things there. If they mix with outsiders, it could mean that the kid doesn't have that immunity. You can't really say on a straight hand "It's beneficial" or "It's bad", it depends on the circumstances. Most often it's neither.

[breadisfunny]

in other words lilla your arguing for racial purity. who knew who else did that.....nazis.

[Emageht Tsoluoy]

I guess you just shouldn't be real surprised when other people see your intensely adversarial response to nothing in particular as marking you as kind of a jerk.

Yeah...

[Spectral]

"Race" as a concept is a social construct.

Yes, there are identifiable characteristics that can distinguish groups physically, but that's true of families, too; you can tell that I'm my father's son because of the similarity of our DNA. That's not really a distinct difference that "matters", in any biological sense, it just means you can identify a closer familial relationship.

That's what racial distinctions are; I'm mostly of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon stock, but that just means that other Celts are closer distant cousins than someone of African origin would be. We're all still related, the common ancestor's just a little further back.

This gets muddied even further when you recognize that ethnicities aren't distinct groups, but bleed into and across those lines regularly, both in the modern age and historically. The chance of anyone being ethnically "pure" is vanishingly tiny, and basically only really exists among those few groups who are still not part of modern society and who are hostile to all outsiders or located so remotely they cannot be feasibly approached with any regularity; there's an tribe in the Amazon or two, and a group on an island in the Indian Ocean that I can think of, but these are tiny, tiny groups. Everyone else is a mix of some sort.

Race and ethnicity are not synonymous terms. Using them interchangeably is either ignorant or a deflection.

That's why "race" is a bollocks concept. Individuals don't fit the categories very well, and the categories aren't distinct.

This is a nonsense point, equivalent to claiming that colors aren't distinct because there's a spectrum. The existence of orange doesn't meant that people can't tell the difference between yellow and red. Likewise, that there's some admixture doesn't suggest that negroid and mongoloid aren't distinct categories; I'm glad that physical anthropologists and other scientists don't engage in this sort of sophistry.

[Deleted]

in other words lilla your arguing for racial purity. who knew who else did that.....nazis.

I'm not arguing for racial purity, stop making shit up. I really couldn't give a fuck about who people get kids with.