patrick.net

those are pretty good, except that objectively, race does indeed exist. are there not breeds of dogs?

your ancestry can be pinned down pretty exactly even with a cheap test from 23andme.com. sure, groups have slightly fuzzy borders because of interbreeding, and you can argue about the edge cases, but race is simply a scientific fact.

to demand that science be overturned in the name of political correctness is to fuel support for trump.

http://patrick.net/Race+is+Real

http://patrick.net/Blacks%2C+Whites%2C+and+Indians

rando says

those are pretty good, except that objectively, race does indeed exist.

Ethnic lines and genetic lineage definitely exist and can be scientifically traced. The historic notion of race is like the historic notion of continents. It's completely meaningless and arbitrary.

I'm Irish-Italian, which means I'm a nigger on both sides of my family.

Italians were not considered white and could not marry white women and were the targets of KKK terrorism.

So, being Irish-Italian, I erupt in flames when exposed to sunlight and can't jump, but I'm not white.

What about Mexicans, are they white or something else?

Just like with continents, the lines drawn historically are completely arbitrary.

Genetics are real, the race classes you check off on forms are not.

rando says

but race is simply a scientific fact.

Then you must have a scientific definition of race. What is it?

Historically, the races are white, black, yellow, and red. That's four races. Maybe, if you include Latino and Indian (from India), you could argue seven races: white, black , yellow, red, brown, and blue. But just seven wide spread categories of humans? Shouldn't there be hundreds, if not thousands, of races if we're arguing that geographical isolation and the decrease of gene flow between populations count as a racial dividing line?

And shouldn't blondes and red-heads each get their own race separate from brown and black hair whites? Should blue eyes get a special race?

I really don't see how the French and the English are the same race or how the English and the Irish are giving all the fighting between those tribes.

A video that basically argues that everyday racial classifications are social, not genetic code.

www.teyvcs2S4mI

www.vVmj8dDx9yY

how you choose to divide people is a social issue.

the fact that that there are distinct genetic groups among humans is a scientific issue.

but the two issues do overlap somewhat. the normal social divisions (black, white, asian) do in fact have a sound scientific basis, except perhaps for the fact that "black" people are far more diverse within that group than whites or asians are.

Dan8267 says

Just like with continents, the lines drawn historically are completely arbitrary.

Genetics are real, the race classes you check off on forms are not.

no, they are not completely arbitrary - they are only arbitrary around the edges.

the race classes you check off on forms do in fact have a reasonable correlation with genetics, certainly not exact, but close enough to reality that a simple genetic test would classify people quite similarly, aside from the social and political whims that move one group in or out of another, such as "hispanic"

99.8% of my ancestors were in europe in 1000 ad. they were white. there is no way they could be honestly classified as black or asian. (the other 0.2% was indeed asian. no idea how that happened, but i don't really doubt that it did)

modern mexicans are a mixed group of native americans and spanish for the most part. in fact, you can test and find a very exact percentage ancestry from both of those groups for nearly all mexicans, because the native indians in that area and the spanish were genetically separated for something on the order of 30,000 years before meeting up again in mexico. and that's plenty of time to generate very specific genetic differences in the populations, many of which are quite obvious to even the untrained observer.

Give me a definition of the word "continent" that I can use not only to identify the contents on Earth, but also the contents on any other planet.

Give me a definition of the word "race" that I can use no only to identify the races in humans, but also the races in any other species.

Unless I have an objective criteria, I cannot consider the matter scientific.

Sure, we could come up with dozens of objective definitions of race, but each one would yield hundreds of races within our species, not five to seven.

Skin pigmentation, the historical criteria for race, is an exceptionally bad criteria. We both work in software and so half the people we work with are from India. I've worked along very dark skin Indians and very light skin Indians, lighter than me. Shouldn't all Indians be in the same race? It doesn't make sense to say that some Indians are in the same race as the Irish and other Indians are in the same race as Nigerians. It just doesn't compute.

I'm not saying that we cannot come up with valid genetic subdivisions of homo sapiens. Clearly we can. However, those subdivisions don't align well with the five to seven historical divisions of humans. And would it really be useful to the average Joe to talk about race if there are dozens or hundreds or even thousands of races? More than 20 races, and no one cares about them. And there would clearly be more than 20 genetic populations if we used any meaningful grouping.

As the videos I posted above show, a mere tiniest fraction of a percent of variance is associated with breeding isolation. We're just too young of a species. Now if another million or so years of isolation had occurred, sure, but that's not going to happen now in such a connected world. 200,000 years is simply not a long time evolutionary speaking. Our closest relatives, the chimps have orders of magnitude more diversity and they are just grouped into two types: common and bonobo.

If we are to use a scientific definition of race, it cannot be human-specific, nonetheless specific to human history.

P N Dr Lo R says

Dan8267 says

I'm Irish-Italian,

Dan8267 says

So, being Irish-Italian, I

March 21:

Dan8267 says

A Nordic person myself, I left my native Finland seven years ago and moved to the U.S.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to have a good memory.

Wow, that's some real bullshit you just posted. I never claimed to be a Nordic person. Funny how you don't have a link.

You are right. When you tell the truth, you don't have to have a good memory. That's why I know I never made the above claim and you are a lying sack of shit.

Feel free to apologize at any time.

Omg, P N Dr Lo R is such a fucking idiot. He's referring to the thread Conservatives don't know shit about socialism It helps individual self-interest in which I referenced the article What Americans Don’t Get About Nordic Countries by Anu Partanen including some paragraphs from that article in a blockquote tag.

Evidently P N Dr Lo R has the reading comprehension skills of a two-year-old on meth.

rando says

but the two issues do overlap somewhat.

I think they overlap on purpose. It serves the ruling class to divide people so that they keep fighting among each other and lose focus on the real root causes behind the socioeconomic problems. Understate the problems perpetuated by the ruling class and shift the emphasis to the visceral divisive forces. It's a powerful distraction as it creates prejudice and reinforces existing biases.

P N Dr Lo R says

If you tell the truth, you don't have to have a good memory.

Wtf ? I hope your kidding. You managed to troll me and I wasted a minute looking it up. http://patrick.net/Conservatives+don%27t+know+shit+about+socialism+It+helps+individual+self-interest

Really ?

uomo_senza_nome_0 says

Understate the problems perpetuated by the ruling class and shift the emphasis to the visceral divisive forces. It's a powerful distraction as it creates prejudice and reinforces existing biases.

Yep, and even smart people such as Patrick totally buy it. If you think people are all basically the same, too many people get offended and accuse of being overly "PC."