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from the does-the-pensioner-want-to-repay-his-benefits-and-go-back-to-work,-too? dept.
In the quixotic battle against old age, some people use skin care and spin class.
That’s not enough for Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old who feels like he’s in his 40s. The Dutch pensioner is asking a court in his hometown of Arnhem, southeast of Amsterdam, to change his birth certificate so that it says he took his first breath on March 11, 1969, rather than on March 11, 1949. The judges heard his case Monday and promised they would render a verdict in the next several weeks.
Ratelband sees his request as no different from a petition to change his name or the gender he was assigned at birth — and isn’t bothered that this comparison might offend transgender people, whose medical needs have been recognized by the American Medical Association. It comes down to free will, he maintains.
I want to be recognized as an alien trapped in an Earthling's body.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Friday November 09 2018, @08:34PM (2 children)
Actually, it's not.
Look at the research. I presented several links which specifically address that issue.
Where is the *actual* data and research that supports your claim? You don't have any? There's a shocker. Not.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:05AM (1 child)
Those links say intra-race variation exceeds inter-race. They do not say that inter-race means do not differ. Inter-race means do often differ, canonical examples being pigmentation, lipid distribution, hair/less patterning, hair protein kinkiness, height, and even intelligence (Ashkenazi jews).
Now, the **cultural construct** of white/black races is useless, because the genetic pools those describe are grouped pretty tightly around melanin genes, which don't code for much else, and melanin doesn't impact development/life tooooo much apart from some cancers. So the *cultural definitions* of race are very often utterly useless. But population subgroups exist, and some of those are culturally defined as 'races', and eg. Andean populations have different phenotypes, beyond just skin colour, than Inuit, or than Maasai.
Argh. I hate to do this, ie. to argue against someoe who I think is 'more right', but you have to be right for coherent reasons or you don't represent ideas well.
So let's repeat: intra-race variation exceeds inter-race, but doesn't disprove inter-race, which has been demonstrated on some axes between some populations, using the socially common understanding of 'race' which is not the biologist's (H.Sapiens). Further, developmental and epigenetic factors (food security, mental wellbeing, social environment, clothes and shelter, parental exposure to stress/alcohol/formaldehyde/mercury?/lead?/etc) almost certainly provide much larger driving forces in any instance except pigmentation than 'race.' But it's wrong to say Mbena and Maasai have the same expected outcomes in every way.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:36AM
I'm not sure what point of mine you're trying to rebut.
1. I absolutely did *not* say "that inter-race means do not differ" Rather, what I said was that,
a. "race" is not a valid scientific concept;
b. geographically separated populations do differ. They just do so less (on the whole) than localized groups. In fact, you paraphrased my point when you said "intra-race variation exceeds inter-race."
2. I don't subscribe to unscientific definitions as they are too squishy for my taste. For example, the vernacular use of the term "theory" doesn't comport with the scientific use of that term. As such, while I do agree with the premise that geographically or culturally isolated (in the interbreeding sense) population groups are different (this is both empirically and intuitively obvious), there is only one "human race."
3. We appear to be in violent agreement. If you really want to argue semantics, please do it with someone else. I'm not interested in doing so.
All that said, you expressed our (as in collective human knowledge) understanding of how geographically separated populations can and do differ, including genetic, societal, cultural, economic and epigenetic factors quite nicely. Well done.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr