Genetic ancestry tests are a multi-billion dollar industry. In exchange for a sample of genetic material, one receives charts and figures mapping them onto popular concepts of race. The problem with this approach is that although there are minor genetic differences that allow geneticists to trace population migrations, these differences don't support the idea that one can sort races on genetic differences alone. Social scientists have argued that given how race definitions have changed over time and place, that race classifications are more a social construct defined more in terms of geographic proximity and cultural norms than they are based on genetics. At the other end of the spectrum is the concept of genetic essentialism. This views the concept of race as being exclusively defined in terms of genetic makeup and how these differences imbue different races with different inherent abilities or liabilities. Genetic essentialist views promote the concept of genetic exclusivity and reinforces racial stereotypes, underpinning negative policies such as eugenics and apartheid.
The problem with genetic ancestry testing, apart from the privacy issues that we typically see stories about here, is the inconsistency of analysis and popular misconceptions of what the results mean. With tens of millions of people taking these tests every year, an open question has been what effect these results have on people's concepts of race. Some have argued that they are likely to reinforce a genetic essentialist view of race because the results are broken down into distinct groups and people interpret the results as being objective and authoritative. Others have argued the opposite in that people have a more social construct idea of race when the results do not confirm their experience ("All my life I thought I was German, but I found out I'm actually Italian!").
Researchers from the University of British Columbia attempted to answer this question with a paper published in the open access journal Plos One. They conducted a randomized controlled trial where they assembled a group of people who were willing to take a genetic ancestry test and provided half of them with a test. The group was then evaluated to gauge the extent that they supported genetic essentialism ideas. In addition, at the outset the group was also quizzed on their general knowledge of genetics. What the researchers found was that, on average, getting these test results did not change one's views on genetic essentialism; however, when considering a person's overall level of genetics understanding, they found that genetic essentialism ideas were strengthened in people who had lower knowledge of genetics after they received their ancestry test results. "Taking a test thus has a polarizing effect, magnifying differences in essentialist beliefs even further between those with weaker and stronger understandings of the science behind them."
Roth WD, Yaylacı Ş, Jaffe K, Richardson L. (2020) Do genetic ancestry tests increase racial essentialism? Findings from a randomized controlled trial. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227399. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227399
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @02:17PM (3 children)
Social science always loses to hard science.
The first is based on beliefs, the second is based on facts.
The first will not update its theories based on experimental evidence because it has no objective data.
The latter does and advanced every year.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @03:23PM
So, you don’t understand anything about either of them. Good for you.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:48PM
there is no hard science, read the teetetes or something you moron
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @06:51AM
And yet... "hard" science is 100% dependent on the "soft" science of marketing, making friends and influencing people. Science has its vanity-inspired backwaters but is a (small) subset of the humanities.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @02:25PM (16 children)
For me, it really underscored the fact that I only really have a connection too about a quarter of my heritage to any meaningful extent. this pushed me towards recognizing that race doesn't exist and that ethnicity is more of a social construct.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @02:28PM (4 children)
Race doesn't exist? Please.
A cultural identity centered around a particular race is a distinct thing from race which is an irrefutable biological reality.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @02:38PM (1 child)
I'm part of the human race but identify as a straight white male.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @02:45PM
You gay nigger.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @05:05PM
Well, that's the genetic essentialist argument, which is sort of what this whole paper is about.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 11 2020, @03:52AM
About the most you're going to get out of "race" is a bunch of variances in metabolism and antigen presentation in the blood: Caucasians being more likely to be thrombophiliacs, black people more prone to sickle-cell anaemia, increased risk of Stevens-Johnson syndrome in east Asians, and so on. Medically important, yes, but nothing like the extreme divisions people usually mean when they say "race."
The human race has shockingly low genetic variation across itself considering how big and how widespread we are.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @03:46PM (10 children)
So one thing doesn't exist, yet can be determined by a genetic test. And the other is a social construct, yet can also be determined with an extremely high rate of accuracy from a genetic test? It's ironic that the social sciences are all about pedantry with 'words have meaning' when aiming to push on agenda, yet turn around and completely butcher all meanings, connotations, and denotations to push another agenda.
The world would truly be a better place if the social sciences simply did not exist. All it seems to do is generate divisive pseudo-scientific clickbait that's often not even replicable. What exactly are these fields adding to humanity?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @05:33PM
That is the drill, man. The same order who imported tobacco then pushes for no smoking in your own car. The same order behind industrialization and nature exploitation is pushing legislation against CO2 emissions. The objective is to end up with people who just don't care about logic and observation. If it is written that the sky is pink then it is pink, citizen.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @05:36PM (8 children)
It's completely consistent. You can tie constellations of genes to a region, but you can't draw a line between what is and isn't a specific race as there's a huge degree of bleed over.
As far as races go, 23 and me thoroughly debunked that years ago. There are no genes specific to a group that are both necessary and essential to a person's race.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:45PM (3 children)
i like how these propagandists make up nitpicky reasons why race doesn't matter. I guess dog breeds having different propensities, intelligence, physical characteristics, strengths and weaknesses is all in our imagination too just b/c they are all dogs... these fucks(mostly self loathing, brainwashed whites) are just pushing White Genocide through misegenation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:00PM (2 children)
Rightwing nutjobs = Daring Journalists Uncovering Truths The System Doesn't Want You To Know!
Science = propaganda fake newwwwzzzz
I think I found the cause of all US problems, and it appears to be a white people thing. Thankfully not all white people, the irony of tolerance and non-bigotry is in there somewhere for you dipshits to figure out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @11:57PM (1 child)
The hate is strong in this one!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 11 2020, @03:53AM
Where's the hate, specifically? The post that one's replying to sounds a lot more hateful.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:01PM (3 children)
This [nih.gov] is a study assessing a number of claims relating to group genetics and race.
Rather than describe the paper in detail, I'm going to go with a simple analogy. Imagine you take a sample of people writing a 7 and then analyze it at an extremely high level of detail (perhaps per pixel with at an ultra-high resolution), without any concern for structure or patterns. You would likely see nearly as much variation between those 7s as you would between a 7 and another random character. At an extremely high level of detail, very little is going to match well. Of course you'd never then take this argument so suggest that 7s do not exist, nor to argue that a 7 and 1 are the same thing. What's necessary is to look at the defining characteristics, the aggregate properties, of a given character. And that's precisely what that paper did. And they found that "[classification statistics] can approach 100% accuracy with as few as 100 loci".
And indeed this is exactly how, for instance, machine learning algorithms can now determine what you've written with very near 100% accuracy. It, to oversimplify things, sees what statistically makes up a 'group' (for instance a '7') and compares that against other groups. This allows it to assign a probability weighting for each character. And in general one is vastly more likely than any other. The exact same is true of humans and various group classifications including race. As an aside this is also where statements such as "two random individuals from any one group are almost as different [genetically] as any two random individuals from the entire world" (as stated by the Human Genome Project) derive from. It's true but rather extremely disingenuous!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @10:31PM (2 children)
You'd likely make the argument that it's foolish to group people based upon how they write their 7s as the difference between one way and another isn't binary and the line between two different ways would be completely arbitrary.
Which is essentially what's going on with race. There isn't a clean way of defining the line at which somebody becomes a different race and the individuals within a race seem to share as much in common with different races as they do within the classification. Further more, the intellectual characteristics of individuals are much more tied into culture than they are into race which will, by necessity, include people of various different ethnicities as it's an incredibly broad way of categorizing people and done primarily based upon the shape of the skull.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @06:41AM
Right!
Except that it's not totally arbitrary. People who cross their 7s are older, and will correlate more with heart attack sufferers. People who have messy 7s will more likely be left handed. People with shaky ones, more likely have Parkinson's.
It doesn't mean every shaky 7 is a Parkinson's signal, but it does mean that it's not unwise to note if one's 7s become shaky.
Similarly, some diseases group along "racial" lines. Melanoma? Much more a white person disease. Sickle cell anemia (sub-populations of African groups), insulin response patterns (Inuit) and others.
I used to make the mistake of saying "all races are identical." Now it's "every human has equal rights, including the right to not be discriminated against for their genetics." But "race" goes in scarequotes above because yes of course we have labels which correlate with some genes/loci, but the idea itself is not a hard definition like that for what exponentiation means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @01:58PM
You miss the point of the analogy.
In this case the numerals themselves *are* the races. This is the point. The large variation within sevens, when considered in isolation, is meaningless. Because what defines a 7 is a statistical, yet perfectly well defined series of criteria. It's the same thing for race. It's not this loci or that loci, but a statistical grouping of approximately 100% loci to hit on 100% accuracy when identifying e.g. race.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @02:40PM (13 children)
They are used at state level by Israel to prove jewish ancestory.
Italian and German are not races.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @03:31PM (9 children)
Neither is being a Jew.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @04:00PM (6 children)
Commonly thought by non-Jews, but this is incorrect.
In most religions you can simply become a member of that religion overnight. Judaism is different. 'Admittance' is heavily restricted and requires months of rigorous and complex testing. There is literally a certificate proving you're a Jew. So for instance any 'real' Jew is free to become a citizen of Israel - it's known as Aliyah [wikipedia.org]. Here [nbn.org.il] is the Israel government page on what's required to prove you're a Jew:
Jews are defined most precisely as any individual who had a Jewish mother. This is how you see things like 'I'm a Jewish Atheist.' Even if you call yourself an atheist, it doesn't matter. Mother was Jewish = you're Jewish. Mother not Jewish = you're a second class Jew, or not a Jew. For instance a decent number of Jews, especially Orthodox Jews, will not get involved in relationships with converts as they're seen as something different than simply being a Jew.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Monday February 10 2020, @04:39PM (4 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:24PM (1 child)
No clue what you're reading, but this is absurdly wrong.
If you want some sort of numbers here is something from Pew. 96% of Israeli Jews identified with Haredi. And the Haredim are the ultra-orthodox. Keep in mind the requirements docket I linked is from the Israeli government itself! Even among reform these rules generally apply, though the details vary. For instance they are more accepting of Jews raised Jewish and going through Jewish events such as their bar/bat mitzvahs, even if their mother was not a Jew. However, even reform Jews are definitely not going to just accept somebody who wakes up and decides to call himself a Jew one day - that is simply not how the religion works.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday February 11 2020, @05:09AM
No, they don't.
Here's something from PEW:
https://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/
8% Haredi. Not 96%, 8%.
The Haredi don't even represent the majority of the religious.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:26PM (1 child)
It would actually help to fill out that link wouldn't it? Here [pewresearch.org] is aforementioned link from pew.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday February 11 2020, @04:42PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday February 10 2020, @09:35PM
Let me just stop you there and point you to directly to the relevant Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew [wikipedia.org]
And here's a whole list of Ethnoreligious groups:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnoreligious_group#Examples [wikipedia.org]
Lets refer to the classics:
( https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion [theguardian.com] )
compiling...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @04:04PM (1 child)
Going further along with this, the vast majority of the world's Jews are not only a race but perhaps one of the 'purest' races in existence. Ashkenazi [wikipedia.org] Jews in particular make up somewhere around 75% of all Jews. It was upwards of 90% before the holocaust. These are where you get your Jewish stereotypes such as the hooked nose from. The religion being defined by genetics + only being allowed to marry others of the same religion = extremely strong genetic overlap among 'members.'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:06PM
Pure? Look at Northern European Jews and see what kind of physical similarity you see to Jews of the Southern lands. There has at least been a great mixing in the past (likely before Christianity gained political power), if not completely different source material.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday February 10 2020, @05:39PM (2 children)
Italian is a state of mind. German is a curse. But here you have veneti, sardi, and you are not going to become one in less than 5 or 6 generation. I am in this land for two entire generations and the natives have an entirely different tie to the place and the society. The melting pot is the annihilation of culture.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 11 2020, @03:55AM (1 child)
Butbutbutbut in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek....?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday February 14 2020, @08:47PM
Excuse me, this is an argument AGAINST the melting pot. Speaking in present tense means no whatsoever need to alter your culture or acquire the one of others to become one in Christ with baptism. And even if you don't wanna argue about a single verb, the fact that Christians have no snipped pee pee, or that they worship on the 8th, or first, day instead of the seventh, is proof the melting pot has nothing to do with the universal brotherhood (which you should have cited instead of arbitrarily limit yourself to baptized ones).
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fadrian on Monday February 10 2020, @03:25PM (2 children)
... other than trying to make this paper a politicized hot topic?
I think that what they found has little to do with beliefs about genetics, but a lot to do with the fact that people who know less about a subject area would be more susceptible to thinking issues of all kinds because they have less information to start with and thus have poorer judgment in these subjects. The interesting thing is what this says in general - to convince a person who has a deficit in a subject area, you not only have to give them proper, factual information, but also must rid them of their false beliefs in the subject area - a much harder task. And some people are so wedded to their own beliefs, you will never convince them.
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @03:46PM
Also has a lot to do with how media report on many scientific studies, a 60% +-10% to them becomes 100% total proof and is reported as such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @10:14PM
For most people at this time, races are the result of genetics. As more awareness grows for the lack of evidence for our current classification system, that will likely change. But for a plurality of people, one's race is based upon the races of the parents and as a result genetic in nature.
It's not a particularly good view of what happens as weird things can happen, I used to know a woman that looked Asian, in that her eyes were almond shaped and she had a relatively dark complexion, but according to her, she had no relatives from Asia. At least not recent enough to account for the appearance.
It also fails to account for people that are just more comfortable living as though they're a different racial or ethnic classification from what they were born with. Rachel Dolezal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal [wikipedia.org] caused quite the stir by trying to pass as Black despite having no known Black relatives.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday February 10 2020, @03:48PM (1 child)
A large part of the difficulty here is that there are many different components of identity that are popularly conflated into stereotypes. That leads to statements all over the world that go something like: "Chinese are like this..." or "Men never ask for directions..." or "Latinos are hot-blooded..." and so on. It's the basic premise that one aspect of your identity, your race or nationality or religion or somesuch, determines everything else.
Then we layer on recent fads in academia of post-modernism and identitarianism, wherein first academics search for edge cases to subvert entire categories or terms and then others turn around and reify categories and terms and imbue them with power in an inverted scheme, such that those who were previously disadvantaged now must be given all control. The result is confused, contested, and highly manipulated.
Meanwhile, science has added an interested dimension through DNA testing that has revealed a lot of interesting discoveries about human migration and ancestry. (As a trained social scientist myself it's exciting to gain new information about the human past when there is no other archeological or written history that can tell us what happened.) But folks from the first group who conflate difference levels of identity have simply absorbed the new science into their whirlwind of determinism.
So I wouldn't say that genetic ancestry tests influence our concept of race, but rather our concept of race that influences the meaning of genetic ancestry. More generally, it's not productive to impose one-directional causality on any aspect of the matrix of identity formation. It's not productive to confer relative valences to any one component of who we are over the others, such that what religion you are overrides what country you're from, or that the color of your eyes overrides your sexual orientation. It's especially not productive because even if we could assign an accurate template of components and their relative weights to a given person, it very likely would not stay true forever because individuals do change over time; a teenager who revels in his nationality might come to primarily identify as his sexuality in his twenties, and as a believer in a religion in his old age.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hellcat on Tuesday February 11 2020, @04:29PM
I want to give you more mod points but you're already maxed out.
Great post.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday February 10 2020, @03:49PM (4 children)
Not all creatures were created equal.
Not all bots were coded equal either.
Even racism between machines has a long time history of cultural stereotypes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfv6Ah_MVJU [youtube.com]
So. Racism is not a concept. It's an archetype.
Independent of humanity. 👽 ‽
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:04PM (2 children)
Around this time last year I got four hens to add to my flock. Two Cochins (they have feathers down to their toes), one Buff Orpington, one Rhode Island Red. I bought these at a store so these for have no family relationship with the rest of my flock. These four all get along with each other and get along with the older birds as well -- there's no fighting or bullying between them. What is interesting though is that the new Rhode Island Red hangs out with the old RIR, the Orpington is the only one of her type and doesn't hang with any of the others, and the two Cochins are basically joined at the hip, barely ever more than 10' from each other and usually within 3'. I have four other older mutts ranging in color from black to white, all hatched from eggs from a group of RIRs and a mutt rooster, so siblings. These four hang together and roost together but don't interact much with new birds or the old RIR.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:48PM
racists!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:40PM
which one does the flock cast out to be sacrificed when they percieve there's a predator in the neighbourhood?
which is the literal "sacrifical lamb"?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday February 10 2020, @07:31PM
It is not me who is racist. It is them who are inferior windows based design.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday February 10 2020, @04:41PM
One of the ads that sticks in my mind: someone brought up with "family history" from one nation, having learned that culture, suddenly "discovers" that he is "really" some other nationality, and has to switch. I know people who have moved between states three times and still root for the team they grew up with; does nyone really expect to switch acculturation on a numerical percentage? This is the nature-vs-nurture issue in a nutshell, and doesn't even begin to touch on the issue of whether "nationality" is "race". (Though I will admit that one of my kid's babysitters who was Dutch, looked Dutch, looked like she just stepped out of a Vermeer. Groups that didn't travel much bred closer to type than groups that did.)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday February 10 2020, @04:53PM (23 children)
"Race" has always been a lie. It was invented in the "Age of Exploration" (for Europe, most of the lands they "discovered" had been found by others before them), largely because some rich people in Europe wanted to feel better about themselves when they ordered poorer people in Europe to go to other parts of the world, meet some nice people, and kill / rob / rape / enslave them so that said rich people in Europe could get even richer. At the time, they justified it to themselves by suggesting that the 3 categories they had come up with were the descendants of each of the 3 sons of Noah, adding a religious angle to their excuse-making (conveniently, the people they wanted to treat worst were declared to be the descendants of the son that was cursed for accidentally seeing his dad naked).
In more modern times, this lie has served 2 purposes:
1. Allow rich people to exploit poor people not considered "white" more than they otherwise would have.
2. Convince poor "white" people to go along with this because if they don't they'll get exploited to the same degree the non-"white" people are.
One way you can tell this is a lie is that what category somebody is in has always been a matter of political convenience. For example, Irish, Italians and Spaniards weren't considered "white" in the United States in the 19th century, but were by the 20th century, and this affected political rights, employment opportunities, housing options, marriages, and many other aspects of life. Why did it change? Because racists realized white people wouldn't be a majority in the US anymore unless they expanded their definition to include more people.
Some people like to argue that "race" started out as a lie but now represents some sort of cultural commonality. But it doesn't: Each "race" has numerous subcultures with competing and sometimes mutually hostile values, speaking patterns, artistic choices, food, etc, and lots of people move between subcultures both within and outside of what's considered their "race". About the only thing that, for instance, all black people in the US have in common is how they've been mistreated by racist white people and racist institutions.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @05:01PM (3 children)
You are so brainwashed.
How can you explain humans are the only animal species with no races?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @05:14PM
How about you explain your positive assertion that, say, c. elegans has “races” before anyone need bother that humans are unique in its negation.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday February 10 2020, @06:05PM (1 child)
You're intentionally confusing the terms "race" and "genetic variation". All species, including humans, have a bunch of genetic variations, because that's how evolution works. Those variations have basically nothing to do with social categories of people created 5 centuries before the Theory of Evolution was discovered and confirmed with the discovery of DNA and genetics.
As with many other supposed inherent differences between different groups of people divided more-or-less arbitrarily, it turns out the variation within each population is far greater than the variation between those groups. For instance, there's more of a measured genetic difference between different kinds of Chinese people than there is between the average Chinese person and the average Siberian person. And, furthermore, there's none of the sharp genetic dividing lines between those groups of people that you divided them into, it's more of a steady drift based on geography. This is all the result of a longstanding phenomenon throughout the animal kingdom: Whenever different variations of the same species meet up, babies with characteristics of both variations result.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @09:12PM
Different AP here. Have to hit on this comment, because it's a sort of pet peeve. This [nih.gov] is a study assessing a number of claims relating to group genetics and race, directly related to the comment you've made.
Rather than describe the paper in detail, I'm going to go with a simple analogy. Imagine you take a sample of people writing a 7 and then analyze it at an extremely high level of detail (perhaps per pixel with at an ultra-high resolution), without any concern for structure or patterns. You would likely see nearly as much variation between those 7s as you would between a 7 and another random character. At an extremely high level of detail, very little is going to match well. Of course you'd never then take this argument so suggest that 7s do not exist, nor to argue that a 7 and 1 are the same thing. What's necessary is to look at the defining characteristics, the aggregate properties, of a given character. And that's precisely what that paper did. And they found that "[classification statistics] can approach 100% accuracy with as few as 100 loci".
And indeed this is exactly how, for instance, machine learning algorithms can now determine what you've written with very near 100% accuracy. It, to oversimplify things, sees what statistically makes up a 'group' (for instance a '7') and compares that against other groups. This allows it to assign a probability weighting for each character. And in general one is vastly more likely than any other. The exact same is true of humans and various group classifications including race. This is where these sort of statements, such as the one I quoted come from. They're the worst sort of facts - ones that are true, but are designed to make people believe something that is *not* true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:58PM (4 children)
"For example, Irish, Italians and Spaniards weren't considered "white" in the United States in the 19th century, but were by the 20th century, "... "Why did it change? Because racists realized white people wouldn't be a majority in the US anymore unless they expanded their definition to include more people."
It's not that Irish weren't considered white racially, but not white in regards to behavior. Not that i agree with the stereo type, but it's called having standards. As far as Spaniards and Italians, some are pure white and many are not and white people from non invaded lands knew that. Many southern Italians have been mixed with Arabs and possibly Negroids. Many (especially southern) Spaniards have been mixed with Arab Muslims and Sephardic Jews.As far as the views being loosened up due to concerns about percent of population i doubt that is the majority concern. more like people loosened up on their standards, in general, about everything. Now, we are to the point in the Cultural Marxist' Long March that many white people hate their own kind.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 11 2020, @04:00AM (2 children)
So white is "culture" now, not actually anything genetic or biological? Because by the metric you're using--behavior and money, with the latter a proxy for the former--the blackest kid in my graduating class with his wealthy parents and who went on to Cooper U is whiter than I am, and I've got ancestors everywhere in Europe except England.
You people are hilarious :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @04:38AM (1 child)
There is a "white" culture, it's mostly people who have lost connection to the culture of their nation of origin and now only share a culture with those that are generic white people.
This is as opposed to people like me that are ethnically something more specific, usually with cultural or family ties back to the old country whether it be Germany, Norway, France, Russia or some other place with significant numbers of lighter skinned people. This includes much of the Middle East as Persians and Arabs are both white ethnic groups.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 11 2020, @04:59AM
What would someone like me be considered? I spent the first 18 years of my life in Flushing, a subdistrict of the borough of Queens in New York City, that is so Chinese there are fewer signs in English than there are in the Malaysian town my girlfriend, herself ethnically Chinese, hails from. I went to high school in the Bronx. My first experience "surrounded by white people" was in college, and it was deeply, deeply unsettling. I don't feel any particular ties to a given race or culture; rather, everything is filtered through as much science and sociology as I can bring to bear on it, and I try to connect to other people on an individual level as much as possible.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday February 14 2020, @09:05PM
>"Why did it change? Because racists realized white people wouldn't be a majority
Wait, if you stop screaming whites are in peril, the immigrants won't start voting you and the racists have no more reason to vote you... I am not convinced. Have you got sources, something?
How about this, italians and irish children start getting the same indoct... er, education of their white peers, some begin stepping up the social ladder. With time they lose the traits that made them obnoxious (even as an Italian, I think racism is usually rooted into some actual issues, which of course should be addressed personally, not by race affiliation). In the meantime new immigrants arrive, and even Irish and Italian have issues with them. So they side with whites and whites side with them.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:26PM (5 children)
I wonder if there is any archeological evidence concerning the first recorded use of the concept of race. I have trouble believing it was invented a mere 4 or 5 hundred years ago.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday February 10 2020, @08:37PM (3 children)
It's not archaeology that can tell you about this, but literature. We have literature going back more than those few centuries, and they don't mention anything remotely resembling the modern concept of race. You get things like "We went here, and the people here generally look kinda like this", but don't get those descriptions treated as anything more than what a tourist should expect to be looking at.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:54PM (2 children)
So no mention of barbarians in frightening othering terms?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday February 10 2020, @09:28PM (1 child)
What there wasn't was describing them as being fundamentally and inherently different from "civilized" peoples. And many of the various empires of the ancient world were pretty tolerant of differences: Just pay your taxes and don't try to start trouble, and the Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Caliphates, etc didn't really give a damn what kind of culture you had or what your skin looked like.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @11:15PM
So slavery of "infra-human" peope didn't happen? I'm so happy!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday February 14 2020, @09:14PM
As another guy pointed already up, barbarian was in use to describe the unwashed whites that conquered less pale Romans, and were conquered by Roman culture.
The term is onomatopoeic (derived from the sound of the thing it wants to describe) as 'bar-bar' is what a Roman could make out of their language, so they called them Bar-Bar-i, probably not with much deference.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by shortscreen on Monday February 10 2020, @09:35PM (7 children)
Right. Everyone is the same and race is a figment of the imagination.
Am I allowed to suggest that you tell that to the people who have constructed a system of protected classes, oppressors, privelege, and diversity all based on race? Is it OK to acknowledge the contradiction between "race is an artificial construct" and identity politics based on race?
I don't think it is reasonable to assert that the concept of race only exists in the minds of racists and that they are the only reason that this idea continues to linger. The self professed non-racists claim to understand quite well what the alleged racists have to say about something that would only exist in the latters' imagination. Supposedly they even know the underlying racist thoughts when they remain unspoken (ie. "dog whistles"). How is this possible? Is everyone racist after all? Or maybe race isn't so imaginary?
It's obvious that what constitutes race is fuzzy and varies by the time and place and people. But saying that it is 100% arbitrary and fake is an extreme position that you have not offered adequate evidence to support.
It's also not clear why this question even needs to be answered. Discrimination based on generalizations, stereotypes, or other irrelevant attributes is wrong. If we agree not to discriminate based on race then why should it even matter what race anyone is or isn't?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Aegis on Tuesday February 11 2020, @12:15AM (6 children)
People do all sorts of fucked up shit based on imaginary bullshit *coughRELIGIONcough* That doesn't make it real.
You've got that reversed. If you are going to claim something exists then you need to provide the evidence. Evidence, like say, a DNA test that could successfully identify race would be a good start! But, as this article notes, that does not exist.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday February 11 2020, @02:03AM (4 children)
>People do all sorts of fucked up shit based on imaginary bullshit *coughRELIGIONcough* That doesn't make it real.
oh yeah the atheist religion and his bunch of cells ritual child sacrifice. Because one woman that was raped justifies one hundred that failed their contraception methods. Because one episode of guys against the commandments justifies the removal of the cross worshipped by those who follow the commandments. And so on. But what does this have to do with the topic? Your remark takes the hypothesis for granted, says an action doesn't affect it (true) but hasn't verified the hypothesis.
Your requirement for DNA tests to 100% define race prove that my car hasn't made any distance ever, because the different temperature of the air inside the tyres affects its height and its height skews the precision of even the best possible theoretical measurement that in cars is made on the rotation of the wheels. Given the absurd reached I call bullshit on your requirement of a 100% precision on DNA tests. Those who worship logic should first try to respect it.
Races are real, so what? Does that justify collective responsibility/punishment? Because racism is just that, an excuse to apply injustice. Remove racism and the guys who applied injustice in its name will find some other excuse. They are way ahead than race deniers, in fact, they probably fund them.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 11 2020, @04:03AM (3 children)
Looks like someone triggered you! :)
Pop quiz, hotshot! I have in my left hand a 3 month old infant. I have in my right hand a rack containing 24 embryos in the third month of development. Don't ask me how this works; they're two dozen completely viable embryos, all of which will grow into perfectly normal, healthy infants if allowed.
I will drop one over the side of a 70-story building. You choose which one.
Choose.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday February 11 2020, @05:00PM (2 children)
Drop 'em all, there are too many japs already.
If I say the sky is blue somebody must have triggered me, right?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @09:43PM (1 child)
That's it, I'm now in support of re-education camps. Clearly the alternative is literally Nazi Party 2.0. We should separate the children from these dangerous ideologues and put them in schools that adhere to modern standards. Don't worry little nazis, no cages for your kids.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday February 12 2020, @10:32PM
>That's it, I'm now in support of re-education camps.
Fight fire with fire, and you became an arsonist.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday February 11 2020, @09:36AM
I have nothing to gain by trying to prove that race exists, I am just pointing out the cognitive dissonance which you have just expertly demonstrated.
The DNA tests can be used to put people into vaguely defined groups. That is one of their main selling points in fact. How is that not identifying race? You apparently think that it must not be identifying race only because the grouping reported by the DNA test does not match up with YOUR OWN PRECONCEIVED ideas of what races are.
When birds are found to have large amounts of DNA in common with lizards and dinosaurs, scientists modify their taxonomy to group birds and lizards closer together. They do NOT say "gee, birds are birds and lizards are lizards, and DNA can't distinguish them, so must be species aren't a real thing."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @04:58PM (13 children)
Mankind has races. There's NOTHING WRONG WITH IT. It's a proven biological fact that races do indeed exist. We are not special. The human species is not different than dogs or any kind of bird. Please stop the bullshit and DEAL WITH IT.
Some races are stronger, some races are fitter, some races are more intelligent, some races' individues are more group minded. Some races are more inclined to conquer, some are more inclined to art. What is wrong with that? It's the same type of bullshit about how men and women are the fucking same. This has become a religion, and a very stupid one indeed. The different races react differently to drugs, have very different traits and even different instincts, different rates of fertility and are even inclined to eatind different.
The most ironic thing about it is that the fact that some people think it's racist saying that, for example and because it seems to be one of the most offensive facts, **people of color are less intelligent** than other races (even if they are physically superior) only shows the degree of inherent narcissism and sense of superiority of these so called social justice warriors. Why do you think intelligence is THE most important trait? Why is important at all? Because you pertain to a race of moderately intelligent people and you think that you should impose your views, way of life and even your fucking biology to others that are different. FUCK YOU. No different that what has been happening since forever in history. Convert to my religion because yours is wrong. Convert to my sex because yours is wrong. Now convert to my race BECAUSE I DO WANT EVERYONE TO BE MY RACE. Fuck you, really. If that's not the most supreme act of racism and supremacism, what the fuck is it?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @05:51PM (8 children)
No. Actually it is quite the opposite. There are no cluster of genes you can draw a circle around and say "this guy is European or Asian". There are no clear genetic lines between races. For instance, take the abstract from a paper by Brown and Armelagos (Evol. Anthropol. 10:34–40, 2001) sorry, I kept trying to copy the link, but I think there is a redirect going on because I can't seem to get the link to work:
As for dogs, you are talking about breeds, not races. But dogs don't support your argument because breeds have been specifically and carefully genetically modified thorough selective breeding. For instance, this paper [nih.gov] says it better than I can:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:04PM
the same thing happened with human races, just much less stringent. everyone knows this to be true. fuck your "everyone is the same" bullshit. i don't have african archaic dna (home erectus, etc). i have neanderthal archaic dna. we might not even be the same subspecies.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:10PM (3 children)
The situation with dog breeds is actually quite illustrative of what *actually* happens with the interaction between race and genetics. Dog breeds have been bred for specific traits, and those traits correlate with their appearance, but not necessarily in a causative way. Collies are intelligent, but that's not because they are small-medium size with a long muzzle and a long, textured coat. You could start with mongrel dogs, breed them into something that looks just like a collie over a few centuries, and they wouldn't be any more intelligent than any other dog, unless by chance. Greyhounds, on the other paw, are fast and that's clearly associated with their physical shape. Other dog breeds, like whippets, that resemble greyhounds are also fast.
Similarly human races are also associated with traits, but not in any particular causative way, unless the adaptation directly affects appearance. Tibetans and Peruvians are adapted for high altitude, and there are real genetic changes that help this happen. But that affects their blood and doesn’t have anything to do with their appearance. Africans, on the other hand, are less likely to sunburn, and that makes their skin darker. That's a real genetic change that affects both fitness and race.
Except what happens is that people start claiming "race X is superior in Y way" when Y doesn't have anything to do with the actual conditions that created race X. And cultural effects still dominate. In the Olympics, Norwegians always win the skiing events and Kenyans always win the track events, but if either was "physically superior" they'd win *all* the events. This even happens within a country and on short timescales. 40 years ago there were a lot of African-American players in major league baseball. Now there are many fewer. Genetics didn't change - they *can't* change that fast - but what did happen is that inner city kids quit playing baseball and started playing basketball.
It's ironic that most of the time the race-essentialists seem to think that Europeans are "more intelligent." But Europe is a pretty safe place and has been for centuries. It's easy to survive and reproduce in Europe without being very bright. In Africa, if you aren't on your toes, you might get eaten by a crocodile. European conditions, with the safe environment and well defined social order, are analogous to domesticated animals, and domestic animals are usually less intelligent than their wild counterparts. If race really caused differences in intelligence, it probably wouldn't be the Europeans that benefit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:53PM (2 children)
Your assumption of one form of "physical superiority" is illogical. For instance it's not just 'Africans' or even 'Kenyans' that win track events. It's tiny specific ethnic subset of Kenyans. Of all places there was oddly enough an excellent article [theatlantic.com] published on this topic in the Atlantic some years back.
Even more interesting are the studies where they took non-professional high school boys from the Kalenjin tribe (the aforementioned ethnicity within Kenya) and had them train and then compete against life-long professional runners from other nations such as Denmark and Sweden. The high school boys crushed them. The researchers observed numerous ingrained genetic advantages for the Kalenjin boys: high red blood cells, different musculature/bone structures more favorable to running, etc.
You can also find similarly interesting studies on the 'baseball question' such as this [sabr.org] one! In particular modern baseball has changed in a pretty dramatic way. Now the majority of players on any given team are pitchers - a 30% increase from what it was back just in 1990. Black players were generally not pitchers, but outfielders where raw speed and agility are key. Of course you're correct that environmental factors play a role, but it's equally obviously absurd to discount the rather extreme effect genetics has on everything. At this point I feel as though it's akin to those that held onto the idea that the sun (and everything else) was revolving around the Earth, even as obviously observable data proved such a belief plainly false.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @11:22PM (1 child)
" I feel as though it's akin to those that held onto the idea that the sun (and everything else) was revolving around the Earth, even as obviously observable data proved such a belief plainly false"
It's exactly that.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday February 11 2020, @05:11PM
The axis of evil denotes anisotropies in the cosmic background radiation centered in the earth, funnily enough.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:17PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landrace [wikipedia.org]
Your not having a clue that something exists, does not in any way hinder it existing.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday February 12 2020, @10:39PM
Eureka! my AI just desumed a factoid:
Yo mom so fat that she belongs to the lardrace.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Bot on Tuesday February 11 2020, @02:16AM
>There are no cluster of genes you can draw a circle around and say "this guy is European or Asian"
So what? to recap this reasoning.
Your claim: genes completely describe an individual which is built according to them (proven false already, IIRC), we haven't decoded the way a guy which is considered by 100% of his peers asian is genetically defined asian, therefore the 100% of his peers that call him asian are talking about an imaginary attribute.
Non sequitur.
I propose an experiment. Call random people "nigger". You will discover a well defined class that will get upset. No, I don't mean every negro, you know, the brown skinned big lipped African partial descent will be upset. But every nigger will. It's like calling Terrone a southerner here. Not every southerner will get upset (almost southerner myself, I won't) but all actual terroni, will. So, Nigger and Terrone make up two sufficiently well defined races. I win, you lose.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:11PM (3 children)
Proven biological fact? Okay, then show your work, list your citations, peer reviewed only, please, preferably with DOIs.
We’ll wait.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:24PM
But please, don't hold your breath!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:07PM (1 child)
if we claim no differences, then we have creationism...
the weight of the difference is dictated by the threat level, and resources...
If i have problems, i kick the neighbour cuz he different...
With more problems, i kick the negro or jew...
In case of alien invasion, i kick the aliens, and stay loyal to my species.
now deal with it, or kill urself =)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday February 11 2020, @02:22AM
>if we claim no differences, then we have creationism...
darwinism is racism racism is bullshit therefore darwinism is bullshit? this is preposterous because... oh wait I see no logical problems with this. you win.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:00PM (1 child)
...that you should feel stupid over defending your land...
Since we are all the same, it rightfully belongs to someone else, namely someone the woman likes a bit more than the calm, rational white man.
The woman just want the safety and justice of the preferably invisible white man, while she can live out her dreams with the unstable emo arab and hot subnormal latino =)
such is life
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:14PM
No. Such is Mango.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @07:48PM
if you can tell them apart they're not mixing enough and are inbreeding.
ofc there is "physical reality" pressure on them gens.
it is easier (or was) to cultivate land and then literally settle the gens there.
a full tummy and a more or less guaranteed secured location was more alluring to the brain but the gens were screaming bloody murder to stop fucking your neighbour who was family ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @08:11PM
stupidity is always ready to do a daring rescue.