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-- Evolution => racism ?

Evolution => racism ?

I've stumbled upon an argument for the hypothesis that if evolution is true then the racist is right. It's a pretty simple argument, and as the conclusion is generally not accepted, that indicates that there is something wrong with the argument. I haven't been able to figure this something out, so I thought I'd throw it to the wolves:

First the definitions:

Race: A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics. (Dictionary.com)

Racism: The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. (Dictionary.com)
I'll take racism to be the first part ("the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability"), presuming it obvious that the latter part ("the belief that a particular race is superior to others") follows from the first and any given set of personal values.

Evolution: Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species. (Dictionary.com)
I'll ignore the "and resulting in the development of new species" as we're talking about human beings, not animals.


The argument, in all it's brevity, is as follows.
The races have come to be through natural selection, and the reason why evolution didn't leave us all as one race is that for thousands of years human kind evolved in isolated groups with very little sexual intermingling taking place and under different circumstances imposed by nature.
Now, these groups did not only differ in the surroundings they lived in, they also differed in culture. Each culture imposes a specific valuation of some abilities (e.g. in some cultures, the ability to dance is highly valued, in others the ability to concentrate for long periods of time). This culturally imposed valuation means that some individuals are more successful in living within that culture than others, and hence are less prone to being outcast, suicide, and rejection by possible procreation partners. Hence, over time the treasured abilities of a culture will manifest itself in the population, whereas those that the culture rejects are eliminated. Thus, if subject X is of race Y, that allows one to have an expectation of the abilities of X, which is racism.

Tear it apart, please.

I'd say that race maybe in some ways does effect the way we are (but only slightly). I remember watching a program with aboriginal kids and white kids. The aboriginal kids had better memory for sequences and places (thought to be because of the greater need for naviagational ability).

But I'd say culture plays a far bigger role in the differences between races than anything else. For example the Palestinian and Israeli peoples are actually the same geneticly (from the same place). Yet I'd bet using testing you could find differences in the way they think (not about about issues just the methods they use).

It's quite simple, dear Dane - race is a social term rather than a biological one. Don't be deluded by what your eyes see but, like that old cliche says, "it's the inside that matters".

quote:

Originally nicked from Wikipedia The rejection of race and the rise of "population" and "cline" At the beginning of the 20th century, anthropologists questioned, and eventually abandoned, the claim that biologically distinct races are isomorphic with distinct linguistic, cultural, and social groups. Then, the rise of population genetics led some mainstream evolutionary scientists in anthropology and biology to question the very validity of race as scientific concept describing an objectively real phenomenon. Those who came to reject the validity of the concept, race, did so for four reasons: empirical, definitional, the availability of alternative concepts, and ethical (Lieberman and Byrne 1993). The first to challenge the concept of race on empirical grounds were anthropologists Franz Boas, who demonstrated phenotypic plasticity due to environmental factors (Boas 1912), and Ashley Montagu (1941, 1942), who relied on evidence from genetics. Zoologists Edward O. Wilson and W. Brown then challenged the concept from the perspective of general animal systematics, and further rejected the claim that "races" were equivalent to "subspecies" (Wilson and Brown 1953). One of the crucial innovations in reconceptualizing genotypic and phenotypic variation was anthropologist C. Loring Brace's observation that such variations, insofar as it is affected by natural selection, migration, or genetic drift, are distributed along geographic gradations; these gradations are called "clines" (Brace 1964). This point called attention to a problem common to phenotypic-based descriptions of races (for example, those based on hair-texture and skin-color): they ignore a host of other similarities and difference (for example, blood type) that do not correlate highly with the markers for race. Thus, anthropologist Frank Livingstone conclusion that, since clines cross racial boundaries, "there are no races, only clines" (Livingstone 1962: 279). In 1964, biologists Paul Ehrlich and Holm pointed out cases where two or more clines are distributed discordantly -- for example, melanin is distributed in a decreasing pattern from the equator north and south; frequencies for the haplotype for beta-S hemoglobin, on the other hand, radiate out of specific geographical points in Africa (Ehrlich and Holm 1964). As anthropologists Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda Jackson observe, "Discordant patterns of heterogeneity falsify any description of a population as if it were genotypically or even phenotypically homogeneous" (Lieverman and Jackson 1995). Finally, geneticist Richard Lewontin, observing that 85 percent of human variation occurs within populations, and not between populations, argued that neither "race" nor "subspecies" were appropriate or useful ways to describe populations (Lewontin 1973). Some researchers report the variation between racial groups (measured by Sewall Wright's population structure statistic FST) accounts for as little as 5-7% of human genetic variation2. However, because of technical limitations of FST, many geneticists now believe that low FST values do not invalidate the suggestion that there might be different human races (Edwards, 2003). These empirical challenges to the concept of race forced evolutionary sciences to reconsider their definition of race. Mid-century, anthropologist William Boyd defined race as: a population which differs significantly from other populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant "constellation" (Boyd 1950) Lieberman and Jackson (1994) have pointed out that "the weakness of this statement is that if one gene can distinguish races then the number of races is as numerous as the number of human couples reproducing." Moreover, anthropologist Stephen Molnar has suggest that the discordance of clines inevitably results in a multiplication of races that renders the concept itself useless (Molnar 1992). Alongside empirical and conceptual problems with "race," following the Second World War evolutionary and social scientists were acutely aware of how beliefs about race had been used to justify discrimination, apartheid, slavery, and genocide. This questioning gained momentum in the 1960s during the U.S. civil rights movement and the emergence of numerous anti-colonial movements worldwide. In the face of these issues, some evolutionary scientists have simply abandoned the concept of race in favor of "population." What distinguishes population from previous groupings of humans by race is that it refers to a breeding population (essential to genetic calculations) and not to a biological taxon. Other evolutionary scientists have abandoned the concept of race in favor of cline (meaning, how the frequency of a trait changes along a geographic gradient). (The concepts of population and cline are not, however, mutually exclusive and both are used by many evolutionary scientists.) In the face of this rejection of race by evolutionary scientists, many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word "ethnicity" to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs in shared religion, nationality, or race. Moreover, they understood these shared beliefs to mean that religion, nationality, and race itself are social constructs and have no objective basis in the supernatural or natural realm (Gordon 1964). (see the American Anthropological Association's Statement on Race [1] (http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm)).

Let's analyse the argument, nonetheless:

quote:

The races have come to be through natural selection, and the reason why evolution didn't leave us all as one race is that for thousands of years human kind evolved in isolated groups with very little sexual intermingling taking place and under different circumstances imposed by nature (1). Now, these groups did not only differ in the surroundings they lived in, they also differed in culture. Each culture imposes a specific valuation of some abilities (e.g. in some cultures, the ability to dance is highly valued, in others the ability to concentrate for long periods of time). This culturally imposed valuation means that some individuals are more successful in living within that culture than others, and hence are less prone to being outcast, suicide, and rejection by possible procreation partners (2). Hence, over time the treasured abilities of a culture will manifest itself in the population, whereas those that the culture rejects are eliminated (3). Thus, if subject X is of race Y, that allows one to have an expectation of the abilities of X, which is racism. (4)

1: You see, you can't build a theory on something whose existence you can't prove now, can you? However, for discussion's sake, I'm replacing "race" for "nationality" in order not to stop here. These differences didn't necessarily appear out of natural selection, but rather could come out of temporary isolation and/or higher incidence of certain genes that don't play an important role in the environment that group of individuals live (e.g. Narrow eyes aren't useful for Native Brazilians - check my avatar -, even though their ancestors might've increased their chance of survival by having them in a windy/snowy region). Different individuals naturally don't agree 100% on anything, so there's no reason why two different nationalities would need to share all characteristics. That's why you've got different groups.

2: Such cultural/social "code of laws/needs" does exist, as can be seen even in the smallest communities (even here). Nothing to see here.

3: Not really. No culture is static and, thanks to those who don't fit into the cultural standards, it can be adapted. That's why there's xenophobia in rigid cultures.

4: Not true. An English-blooded person born in Cambodia, raised by Cambodian adoptive parents, won't be as different from a Cambodian (culture wise, physical needs wise, ...) as another Cambodian, so races don't really matter.

What does exist is ethnocentrism, in which a group perceives itself as superior to others based on subjective values.

Re: Evolution => racism ?

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic The argument, in all it's brevity, is as follows. The races have come to be through natural selection, and the reason why evolution didn't leave us all as one race is that for thousands of years human kind evolved in isolated groups with very little sexual intermingling taking place and under different circumstances imposed by nature. Now, these groups did not only differ in the surroundings they lived in, they also differed in culture. Each culture imposes a specific valuation of some abilities (e.g. in some cultures, the ability to dance is highly valued, in others the ability to concentrate for long periods of time).

You had me up to this point. So far so good. I think it starts to get a bit dicey around here:

quote:

This culturally imposed valuation means that some individuals are more successful in living within that culture than others, and hence are less prone to being outcast, suicide, and rejection by possible procreation partners. Hence, over time the treasured abilities of a culture will manifest itself in the population, whereas those that the culture rejects are eliminated. Thus, if subject X is of race Y, that allows one to have an expectation of the abilities of X, which is racism.

Honestly I'm not as educated on early societal cultures as I should be, but I think the argument starts to get weak when it attempts to depict that the reason FOR different races is the result of outcasts FROM a given culture moving elsewhere. So you have race A with a coupla folks who don't seem to "fit in" there for whatever given reason - they're booted out and must move on elsewhere. They move on and perhaps meet up with other folks elsewhere to start race B somewhere. They intermingle their cultural values and customs together and it continues on from there. Again, I'm not terribly educated in sociological history and early societal cultures, but I'd be hard pressed to believe that this is the means of cultures being formed, let alone migration of cultures and societies across the globe.

Or perhaps that's not the argument at all. Perhaps they're merely saying that cultures have certain historical traits that "manifest" themselves in a population. Therefore if you take an individual from that given population, that person would also exhibit those given traits. I think this is propably their take home conclusion rather.

Well the problem I have with this is homo sapiens is unlike any other species out there - our cultural traits are so incredibly unique, even from the onset of societal cultures that it's seemingly erroneous to conclude similar evolutionary principles like we do with other species. Furthermore, our cognitive abilities and higher thought processes also separate us from any other species - the dolphin is a very, very, very distant second I believe (apes are third, but don't quote me on that either). My point here is that it would be very difficult to conclude that we demonstrate any evolutionary aspects (i.e. survival and reproduction) based on societal cultural traits that may have indeed been distinct at one point in our species history but are not so distinct in today's world. IOW - it would be quite a leap to state that someone of race X today exhibits certain characteristics based solely on their historical cultural traits or customs. Too many other factors come into play to come to such a inductive conclusion on 1 given person of today from a given historical culture.

And one other minor thing to note here as well - what if that given culture X turns out to be counterproductive, i.e. they cannot sustain themselves or their given society? What if it is, indeed, the outcasts that actually prove to be more "sociologically fit", if you will, then the actual group itself? What conclusions based on race of one person today of that given society/culture can we state for certain? And that leads to a further problem - what about the intermingling of cultures and/or races historically? Again, what conclusions could we successfully draw evolution-wise on a given individual from 1 of those cultures today? As Lira points out - cultures are most certainly not static. How could we draw any evolutionary conclusions based on these ancient cultural features and traits?

Ehh, I'm not sure if I'm making much sense, sorry. Again, not my forte.

quote:

Originally posted by Dervish But I'd say culture plays a far bigger role in the differences between races than anything else. For example the Palestinian and Israeli peoples are actually the same geneticly (from the same place). Yet I'd bet using testing you could find differences in the way they think (not about about issues just the methods they use).

Mmm, but even if they stem from the same area, the "two" people have had totally different cultures for ages, and that might have manifested itself in their genetics according to the argument I presented.
In general, I agree with you that if there is such a thing as racial abilities (which a subargument argues) then these will be much weaker in an adult individual than those that are reinforced in the individual from the day of his/her birth. But if that should somehow invalidate the conclusion, then you need to redefine a racist as someone who believes all, most, or important abilities are determined by race.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira It's quite simple, dear Dane - race is a social term rather than a biological one. Don't be deluded by what your eyes see but, like that old cliche says, "it's the inside that matters".

So generally you disagree with the definition of "race", claiming that it does not exists. I guess that that approach would render, not only the argument, but also the concept of racism meaningless. So, if we replace "race" with "population" and "racism" with "populationism", what's changed? It seems to me that it's the same argument? I couldn't follow what a "cline" was, but "population" seemed to be a biological term.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira 1: These differences didn't necessarily appear out of natural selection, but rather could come out of temporary isolation and/or higher incidence of certain genes that don't play an important role in the environment that group of individuals live (e.g. Narrow eyes aren't useful for Native Brazilians - check my avatar -, even though their ancestors might've increased their chance of survival by having them in a windy/snowy region). Different individuals naturally don't agree 100% on anything, so there's no reason why two different nationalities would need to share all characteristics. That's why you've got different groups.

(Non-related questions: Is that you in your avatar? Why wouldn't narrow eyes be useful for Native Brazilians? Isn't there a lot of direct sunlight in Brazil?) I'll buy your main point about there possibly being more reasons for differences between populations than evolution. However, if you claim that these other reasons are more predominant than evolution, then you're basically arguing that evolution does not apply to humans (or at least that it's effect is negligent). Somewhat similar to MisterOpus remarks. As a sceptic of evolution's all-explaining ability I can whole-heartedly agree with that. Even though the argument kinda still stands: "Evolution as explainer of all intra-population commonalities implies racism".

quote:

Originally posted by Lira 2: Such cultural/social "code of laws/needs" does exist, as can be seen even in the smallest communities (even here). Nothing to see here.

Eh. So you agree with that step?

quote:

Originally posted by Lira 3: Not really. No culture is static and, thanks to those who don't fit into the cultural standards, it can be adapted. That's why there's xenophobia in rigid cultures.

Well, I agree with that nowadays, where cultural interchange is so common. In fact I would call it the truth for the last 500 years, and progressively more dubious the longer back in time we get. Cultures such as American Indians, Eskimoes, tribes in the middle of Africa (Zulus?) were very much static, and I would claim that the same very true for European tribes prior to the dynamic culture of ancient Greece. I'm not too familiar with Persian and Asian cultures in those times, but my guess is that large parts of the population (farmers and woodsmen) lived in the same culture for centuries if not millenia.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira 4: Not true. An English-blooded person born in Cambodia, raised by Cambodian adoptive parents, won't be as different from a Cambodian (culture wise, physical needs wise, ...) as another Cambodian, so races don't really matter.

See my reply to Dervish. I think it covers this one.

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Or perhaps that's not the argument at all. Perhaps they're merely saying that cultures have certain historical traits that "manifest" themselves in a population. Therefore if you take an individual from that given population, that person would also exhibit those given traits. I think this is propably their take home conclusion rather.

That *was* the argument. I've most likely screwed up that part of the message with a too elaborate example.
As to the rest of your post, I think I've commented on your point in the above? Meaning that the strongest counter-argument so far is that evolution isn't a universal mechanism/

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Mmm, but even if they stem from the same area, the "two" people have had totally different cultures for ages, and that might have manifested itself in their genetics according to the argument I presented.

I kinda agree with you there (definatly possible). But in evolution terms perhaps the effect in that particular case isn't that great just because evolution takes millions of years.

But I dont think that's got much to do with racism, we are very tribal by nature because we had to be in order to survive. We dont need that anymore, and eventually I beleive (hope) it will grow out.We have to remember that life perpetuates itself through diversity, and the world is becoming a smaller place. We dont have that isolation anymore, hence there will be more mixing. And mixing is what our genes want.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic So generally you disagree with the definition of "race", claiming that it does not exists. I guess that that approach would render, not only the argument, but also the concept of racism meaningless.

But the concept of racism is itself meaningless as the existence of races are not of objective nature, but rather in, what we call "thinkisms" (I would look up the names of the fallacies and cognitive biases involved but it's too late now - I can do it later if you think this would be important to be stress it).

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic So, if we replace "race" with "population" and "racism" with "populationism", what's changed? It seems to me that it's the same argument? I couldn't follow what a "cline" was, but "population" seemed to be a biological term.

Not really: "In the face of these issues, some evolutionary scientists have simply abandoned the concept of race in favor of "population." What distinguishes population from previous groupings of humans by race is that it refers to a breeding population (essential to genetic calculations) and not to a biological taxon."

Genetically, we're not much different.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Is that you in your avatar?

No, that's a yanomami indian. Despite of probably having Amerindian ancestors (and African and pretty much everything else ). This is me:



(I'm the one on the right, naturally).

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Why wouldn't narrow eyes be useful for Native Brazilians? Isn't there a lot of direct sunlight in Brazil?

Yes, there's a lot of direct sunlight in Brazil (even though the Native Brazilian from my avatar lives in a very dense rainforest so it wouldn't matter much for him anyway), but having narrow eyes is not an advantage (nor a disadvantage, for that matter) simply because, unlike those of non-Asian or non-native-american ancestry might imagine, their eyes aren't "less opened", but the muscles around the eyes are more to the front in order to avoid accumulation of snow (it was useful back in the snowy places their ancestors had to endure).

What is useful though, is their dark eyes and their tanned skin. Blue eyed and green eyed people usually complain a lot about sunlight here. As for the tanned skin... believe me when I say that being all red after going out for just 4 hours is not as fun as it might sound. AND I'm a bit tanned myself.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic I'll buy your main point about there possibly being more reasons for differences between populations than evolution. However, if you claim that these other reasons are more predominant than evolution, then you're basically arguing that evolution does not apply to humans (or at least that it's effect is negligent).

Neither black nor white: of course it does apply, but it doesn't need to be so drastic. We're, as a group, not different enough to find different species between us (or a race, for that matter), but that doesn't mean we couldn't have evolved from another species we can no longer interbreed with.

You know, if only I could track down some things I've read... like that explanation about how human population had some sort of bottleneck back in Africa, it would be a lot easier for me to back this all up.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Eh. So you agree with that step? (social laws)

Not in a biological sense but societies do have their norms and often those who are unable to comply are most likely bound to be in trouble. I can't find a counter-example to null this thought.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Well, I agree with that nowadays, where cultural interchange is so common. In fact I would call it the truth for the last 500 years, and progressively more dubious the longer back in time we get. Cultures such as American Indians, Eskimoes, tribes in the middle of Africa (Zulus?) were very much static, and I would claim that the same very true for European tribes prior to the dynamic culture of ancient Greece. I'm not too familiar with Persian and Asian cultures in those times, but my guess is that large parts of the population (farmers and woodsmen) lived in the same culture for centuries if not millenia.

Many of these cultures were based on oral tradition, which is itself dynamic. Naturally there are things they do that has been done for centuries, and there's some resistance specially because of habit and religion but it would be completely impossible for a culture to be static unless:

• The individuals were the same during this period of time.
  
• The individuals didn't think.
  
• The culture were completely isolated so it would never have contacts with other cultures.
  
• The culture were based on very strict written traditions and the code in which these traditions were written shouldn't change either.
  

Well, for evolution to point towards racism, there would have to be significant physical/mental differences between the races. Now, while there is a mild general trend that some races are better at some things than others (black athletes, white/asian scientists, disease resistance variations...), the inside-race variation is much greater than the one between the races (except perhaps on disease restistance to some specific strains). In other words, although there is a bit greater chance for a black guy to be an athlete than a university professor in comparison to a white guy, the difference is not significant enough to force any specific black guy to start training sports instead of studying because there is still a significant chance for that person to be physically screwed up but very smart, and vice versa for the white guy.

ProDiGaL: I agree with what you wrote on "races" disappearing rapidly in the future, but that's beside the point. The argument was that evolution implies that racists are right - whether there will be any "races" for racists to hold prejudices towards in the future is irrelevant for this (abstract) discussion.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira But the concept of racism is itself meaningless as the existence of races are not of objective nature, but rather in, what we call "thinkisms"

Not sure I got this one, but I think that we agreed that "racism" doesn't make sense? I.e. the statement "I met a racist yesterday" would be as ill-defined as "I met the king of France yesterday"?

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Not really: "In the face of these issues, some evolutionary scientists have simply abandoned the concept of race in favor of "population." What distinguishes population from previous groupings of humans by race is that it refers to a breeding population (essential to genetic calculations) and not to a biological taxon."

Ok, my bad. I misspoke: I meant term of genetics.

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Originally posted by Lira Genetically, we're not much different.

I'll buy that one - but we're not much different from an ape either (I seem to remember), so it really is of little relevance to the refusal of the argument.

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Originally posted by Lira No, that's a yanomami indian. Despite of probably having Amerindian ancestors (and African and pretty much everything else ). This is me: (I'm the one on the right, naturally).

Okeydokey. So your friend - is she a native Brazilian Indian? (I stink at telling people's origins - it was most embarrising when I mistook a Norwegian for an Eskimo.))

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Neither black nor white: of course it does apply, but it doesn't need to be so drastic. We're, as a group, not different enough to find different species between us (or a race, for that matter), but that doesn't mean we couldn't have evolved from another species we can no longer interbreed with.

I don't get the connection from the last part of this quote to the discussion? (I'm pretty fucked up in the head right now, so that might explain it).

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Many of these cultures were based on oral tradition, which is itself dynamic. Naturally there are things they do that has been done for centuries, and there's some resistance specially because of habit and religion but it would be completely impossible for a culture to be static unless: The individuals were the same during this period of time. The individuals didn't think. The culture were completely isolated so it would never have contacts with other cultures. The culture were based on very strict written traditions and the code in which these traditions were written shouldn't change either. These arguments are absurd because people every generation replaces the preceding one, individuals do think and face new situations every day and language does change with time (otherwise spelling in English would be a lot easier).

While I agree with what you wrote, I still think that the mentioned cultures can be seen as static from the point of view of valuation of abilities. Taken to the extreme no culture, but that of rocks, are static, so for that category to make any sense, it needs to be defined a little looser.
Like MisterOpus admitted, I'm no student of anthropology, but when I've been introduced to the aforementioned cultures during my education/readings, I've been presented for a static culture. E.g. I've not heard of pre-Ingsuit Eskimoes or mid-Dabus Zulus, or something else, it's just been Eskimoes and Zulus. Not until the ancient Greeks do my learnings start to distinguish periods within the lifespan of the culture. Of course this is really a bad argument, as my education might be bad, and I am willing to alter my perception, if someone can give me some evidence that I'm wrong.

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Originally posted by Lira My point differs from Dervish's in a fundamental aspect - I'm talking about two people living in the same environment but having ancestors from completely different places. Having British ancestors, in the example I used, wouldn't matter at all, because the individual would be in contact with cambodians during all his life, so he would get in touch with what's being thought there, and he wouldn't know what is being thought in England. Genetics would play no role here.

I'll smear some flamebait over myself, and take this to the analogy of dogs: Pitbull Terriers have been bred to be aggresive and strong, for use in dog fights. Recently they have also been used as pets by regular folks. Most(?) of them are nice dogs because they have been raised in a loving family, but some of them suddenly attacks the kids and gnaw off their faces. Maybe this behaviour is caused by the dog's upbringing not being as gentle as the owners claims, or *maybe* it's because such things as aggression can be encoded in the genes and have become more common among Pitbulls than, say, Puddles through the years of breeding.
To bring the discussion back to your English friend, it may be that he appears a regular Brazilian guy, but maybe - just maybe - he occasionally gets this strange urge to dress in an old Arsenal t-shirt, drink his brains out, and shout "****" and "wanker" at his surroundings? Less realistically, it may also be the case that if you take a lot of these English Brazilians(EBs) and compare to, say, Spanish Brazilians(SBs), you will find that a larger percentage of the EBs tend to be more polite or lack the ability to follow a rhythm, than among the SBs? That is, the argument doesn't require you to be able to predict exact abilities/traits for someone, but only to have a probabilistic defensible expectation of these. Or as Drug_tito phrased it:

quote:

Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 Well, for evolution to point towards racism, there would have to be significant physical/mental differences between the races. Now, while there is a mild general trend that some races are better at some things than others (black athletes, white/asian scientists, disease resistance variations...), the inside-race variation is much greater than the one between the races (except perhaps on disease restistance to some specific strains). In other words, although there is a bit greater chance for a black guy to be an athlete than a university professor in comparison to a white guy, the difference is not significant enough to force any specific black guy to start training sports instead of studying because there is still a significant chance for that person to be physically screwed up but very smart, and vice versa for the white guy.

Smokeape: Sorry for using words with more than one syllable. Maybe I'll do a comic-book version later on, so you can get a hazy understanding of the issue that is being debated here.

Interesting argument. I would contend that the argument used by the typical racist is generally eroneous. A "race" defined by skin color or nationality simply bears no resemblance to scientific analysis other than statistical probability rendered through alternative causes. For example, the reason why black people may be more prone to poverty and crime has less to do with inferior genetics (the argument of the racist) as opposed to upbringing and culture. Thus if a black person were raised in the exact same manner as a white person, whould they be more prone to defective behaviour as a result of their inherent genetic differences? I don't think so, and I don't think that there is any evidence to support such a mentality. But if a culture supports the individual to become a completed fuckwad than of course the individual from the cutlure that encourages winner will be "better" than the culture supporting the indvidual from the fuckup society.

But does evolution support a mentality of superiority among dominate "races"? Of course. Races and species die out all the time in evolutionary development. Would recognition of the superiority between homo sapiens and homo hominus or erectus constitute as "racism"? I dunno, probably.

Argument fails to consider sheer numbers of "inferior" races. The sheer numbers will outweigh the best efforts of the "superior" races to purge them from the earth. So, in essence, the argument falls flat. It may have been argumentative back in the stoneage, but in modern times, if we deem the Chinese or Indian as inferior, then good luck in ridding the earth of them. Believe the Nazis tried that with Jews and failed, just as the South couldn't get rid of the Negroes either.


[[[smoke]]]

quote:

Originally posted by smokeape if we deem the Chinese or Indian as inferior, then good luck in ridding the earth of them.

Mongoloids have an average IQ 10 higher than that of Caucasoids,

not that IQ mean SFA

Sorry for the delay, trancaholic... I'm replying as soon as I finish some things here

Heh, this thread reminded me of an interesting research which shows that russian jews like alcohol more than other jewish groups:

http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/gene...blcah030307.htm

Instead of having many tiny quote boxes, I'm just writing a mamoth post. I believe this would be easier to read

First of all, yes, racism doesn't make sense and its concept is meaningless for races don't exist. However, I won't be as naive as to say that there aren't individuals who label people according to their reference of what races are and behave accordingly to this belief. The belief and the believer are independent entities.

And population genetics do exist but claiming one population is better than another is quite frivolous, because a population is not independent - there are migrations, for example, and even if there's a certain "more evolved gene", it would hardly be exclusive to the individuals of that population and/or be present in all individuals.

My friend is not native Brazilian - her parents are Japanese (as in "individuals born in Japan"). This is a quite common mistake actually. Funnily enough, she's got a friend at the colony who's often mistaken as being native Brazilian, simply because there isn't much difference anyway (other than the average amount of melanine, for example). As a matter of fact, she also looks like an inuit .

It's also true that we're not much different from an ape either, however we share too many common features in order to divide people into "races". Other than skin colour and eye-shape, there's no much difference (eye colour is not a criteria because you can have brown eyed "white people", for instance, and you have the same situation with hair colour).

Neither I'm denying evolution, nor I'm contradicting myself. The thing is - there was a population bottleneck in Africa and we come from a rather small original population. Since then, there have been no major changes other than a few adaptive mutations (straight hair offers protection from the cold, melanine offers better protection for sunlight). In fact, even those test tathi mentioned are usually biased and can't really be objective for social problems (the link is for Race and intelligence, by the way ).

You had not heard of a pre-Inuit Eskimo culture? Here is a simple page on History of the Inuit and it's quite interesting actually. By the way, Inuit and Eskimo are different words for the same people (one is native and the other is of French origin). It's, as usual, closely related to migrations.

As for the dogs, there's one little problem - like many other creatures, if it finds itself in danger, it's likely to attack the "agressor". Heck, my brother's been attacked by our poodle (My brother deserved it though ). The difference would be that a pitbull has a powerful jaw and I really wouldn't like to be bitten by a playful pitbull (although I wouldn't mind if a frenzy chihuahua came towards my direction). I had a German Shepherd and it never attacked anyone, even though the bastard was supposed to be our guardian dog - he was used to being well-treated so he would often see a stranger as a friend

Your theory has an interesting analogy

Capitalism + Evolution = Ultracapitalism = more poor, less rich, poor means poorer, rich means richer

your "race" could also mean the small elite of the rich people today. most of them are intangible, and this elite is just getting tinier and tinier, further and further form the large masses.

The lives of billions of people are decided by a few hundred of greedy imperialists.

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