The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea

Can we get a few more "I am the winner" posts so everyone is clear.

 

Are you braindead?

Are males and females genetically more similar or different?

 

Are you saying all of one's genetic qualities are collectively indistinguishable from the particular characteristic of one's sex? If so, you should be checking the status of your own brain.

 

No that's just an incredibly transparent misrepresentation.

 

How so? You said eyes were relevant to one's sexuality. You're talking complete garbage.

 

No I said the exact opposite. I think it's best for this thread that I ignore your dishonest posts.

 

Oh so you said eyes are irrelevant to a person's sex? It certainly doesnt read like that.

 

I think what he is saying is that men and women have more in common (e.g. two eyes, two arms, two legs, a stomach, a heart etc.) than they have differences (e.g. penis vs. vagina, hormone levels etc.). This is obviously true. Sexes have more commonalities than differences. They have entire organs and biological systems that are different. Human populations also have more commonalities than differences. I believe that what Dr. Sussman has said is that when you look at the totality of the gene pool we are not different enough to call diverse populations races. Perhaps he can elaborate on that point.

 

Your interpretation is correct. I would also like Bob to quantify "enough" with data.

 

Nice. I'll freely admit there is no scientific basis for race in humans if you can tell me why forensic anthropologists use the concept. But even if there is no scientific basis, there is a social one. To simply claim there is no such thing as race flies in the face of facts we know to be true. Denial precludes the possibility of meaningful discussion. I have not read this book. I assume it is useful in some scientific endeavor and may be quite scholarly. However, the KKK and NAACP dispute your premise (as opposed to the book's) that race does not exist. When those two groups agree on a topic, perhaps we should pay attention.

 

Racism is certainly real and a problem that exists. I will let Dr. Sussman take a shot at explaining to you why forensic anthropology uses the concept of race and whether or not that validates the concept.

 

races for the homo sapien sapiens sub-species don't exist, at least not from a scientific point of view.

its all social-cultural-political.

 

Garbage.

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That's true. Did you read White Girl Bleed a Lot?

 

I've never heard of it.

 

I know. I realise that this is exactly what he is saying. The problem is that race incorporates all features of our biology as its about our entire genetic background compared to other individuals. He attempted to compare this analysis to that of gender, which DOES NOT require analyse of ones entire genetic background, only of one particular characteristic; what your sex is. Eyes, hair, skin tone etc have NOTHING to do with what your sex is, as I pointed out. I understood his point and it is absurdly illogical.

Seems so, and that's not a surprising conclusion, especially since its been reached quite a few times.

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Great so I did in fact understand and debunk your illogical argument. No surprises there

 

The key thing about race is that it's fundamentally a categorization system. Anyone can observe that people indigenous to faraway parts of the world look different from one another, but the trick comes in when you have to sort those differences into racial categories. That wouldn't be such a problem if these races were all reproductively incompatible with one another (the traditional definition of biological species), but since they currently aren't, you're basically tasked with figuring out where in the blurry gradient do you draw the lines. It's a bit like arguing whether turquoise and cyan should be stuffed into the "blue" or "green" categories since they're clearly between azure and emerald.

One need not even venture outside the racialist circlejerks to see this conundrum in action. Either the racialists are either arguing over which population belongs to which race (e.g. whether Yemenis should be grouped with Norwegians, whether Somalis belong with the former two or with Congolese, whether Navajo and Chinese are racially the same or distinct, etc.), or they're hair-splitting humanity into smaller and smaller races like "Dinaric", "Nilotid", or "Iranid", ad nauseam. Ironically, all these favorite pastimes of theirs really accomplish is validating their opposition's point.

To be sure, racial classification by itself is a separate issue from postulating that people from certain parts of the world are statistically more intelligent/moral/attractive/whatever than others. Nonetheless, the aforementioned pitfalls are inconvenient for any form of racial nationalism, especially when the racialists have to figure out who to let within their own club.

 

I compared race to sex not gender. Sex like race involves a fraction of the genome.

A: There are more similarities between races than differences.
B: Also with sex. We both have two eyes. The taxonomy is about the difference.
C: You are saying having two eyes is part of sex classification.
B: No that's the opposite of what I'm saying.
C: I am the winner.
D: He's saying sex like race has more similarities than differences but that doesn't impugn classification.
B: Yes.
C: So we are correct. I debunked you.
B: *facepalm*

 

Do you know what a continuum fallacy is? Can you post some data on whether human variation is a continuum?

Can you take a quick scan of this and get back to me?
https://right.orain.org/wiki/Arguments_regarding_the_existence_of_races

 

So when you say "sex" you mean, what? Sexual intercourse, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, fertility? What?

 

Dr. Sussman I have two more questions.

Recently Mikemikev made the argument that most books attacking Scientific Racism were written by academic frauds (in the past he has specified that many of them including yourself are Jews who he says have a reputation for fraudulent research). A few years ago an article was written critiquing the research of Stephen Jay Gould on Samuel Morton's cranial research. The conclusion of the paper was that Gould was the one in error and that Morton's data was correct. This created a firestorm in the blogosphere with racist websites celebrating and claiming that Gould was now a proven fraud. I noticed that you reference Gould several times in your book.

Here is my first question....

1. What is your opinion of Mikemikev's accusation that all of these scholars including you are Jewish frauds and what do you make of the paper critiquing Gould?

If you haven't read the article here it is along with my email correspondence with one of the authors:

The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias PLoS Biol. Jun 2011; 9(6)

Now for my second question I'd like to ask you about a debate between Joseph L. Graves Jr. and J. Philippe Rushton which I uploaded to Youtube. If you haven't seen it here it is:

[video=youtube;lUjo31DChcE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUjo31DChcE[/video]

I know from reading parts of your book that you are familiar with Graves and Rushton and I've read your overview of some of Graves critique of Rushton's work. For those who have not read the book I'd appreciate it if you could give some insight in to how you feel Graves did in the debate and what his key points were. Graves has already provided me with a summary of his arguments which I will paste below for you and the other readers.

Here's my second question.....

2. What do you feel are Graves best arguments in his debate with Rushton?

 

It's quite informative to google "Rushton's memory of my critique is quite limited".

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Ask your mom.

 

Great, so you dont know yourself. Not surprising.

 

Why do people think that a person not wasting their time answering stupid questions means they "don't know"?

 

Before I'd donate money to your cause and read your book, I'd have to know that you have done serious scientific tests to prove your theory that culture and enviornmental conditions alone are the cause of the vast differences that do exsist among the different races---certainly in regards to intelligence, "G"---or whatever one wants to call it.

Did you by chance explain how the very best tests done on IQ and inheritance to date show that IQ potential is about 80% inherited and only 20% environmental?

There is the Minnesota Twin Family Study
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Twin_Family_Study

And, there is the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study

One of the studies' findings was that the IQs of transracially adopted black children did not differ significantly from that of children raised by their biological parents in the same area.(all one standard deviation below Whites).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study

I imagine your book overlooked these studies. I also imagine that they don't measure up to the standars of "the hundreds of studies" that you use to support your political goals.

I believe a worldwide study on race and intelligence is in order. At the very least, an assortment of different "races" could be used---you know what they look like as they adorne the cover of your book. At least three measures should be taken from randomized samples of: Blacks, Caucasians, East Asians, Hispanics and South Asians (Hindis, etc) in their twenties.

#1: A basic measure of IQ such as a digit span test of figures or numbers common to the culture.

#2: A genetic blood test of each participant.

#3: An MRI of each participant's brain to determine structure (more important for IQ than weight).

Of coursed the tests would all be done by independant researches that are unaware of theories or goals. I sincerely doubt you would push for such scientific testing because the outcome would show the same genetically-based patterns you ignore.

 

Sadly I think Bobby Boy has packed up his snake oil and moved to the next town.