Evolution and Human Diversity

[jonb]

I meant genes for traits which would be favored in a warm environment. Such genes would've definitely disappeared in Turkistan or Alaska.

Chamaecephalic is the word you're looking for; Indians run the gamut of breadth-height indices, though. Also we tend to be leptoprosopic, moreso even then most northern Europeans. The facial angle tends to be somewhat prognathous. (During the whole Kennewick man debacle, after I deciphered what Chatters' article said, I decided Chatters was a charlatan.)

Light skin is relatively new. There's only a very narrow strip of land around the Black Sea which actually favors the type of light skin typical of northern Europeans: On that land, the conditions are fine for agriculture, and yet there isn't enough solar radiation to make light skin a liability. One theory I have as to why darkness as a symbol for evil is uniquely Western is because obviously one would think dark-skinned babies were cursed, from a Bronze Age perspective of course.

 

[jonb]

Alveolar.

 

[Freddie53]

The latest that I have read about Native American peoples is that in NOrth America alone according to DNA tests, there were four different migrations from four different groups at different times. And in South America the DNA tests show that many of the Native Americans there are not closely related to the Native Americans in Norht America. I suspect that people have been in North America a lot longer than the experts think. I think that there is evidence that some migrations may hve come from the Pacific Rim in South America. Some Native Americans in South America do hae DNA to sugest that. Perhaps the Native Americans are related in some way to peoples from India or the areas you named. I don't know. I know that there are too many differences to classify all Native American in both North and South America as beng one ethnic group coming from one migration from across Asia into North America.

Jon, thanks for taking the time to explain what you menat with those terms. I have a beter understanding now, I think.

I think it would be interesting to see how many real races there are. We classify the natives of Australia as black as in the same as the blacks from Africa. I doubt that is the case.

I suspect that there really are maybe 10 racial grous. I don't know. I think that DNA will reveal a lot more truth than we can possibly know at this point.

As far as evolution goes We have proven that we can alter the phjysical characteristics of a species. What is theory is the concept of jumping species or dividing into separate species.

I wonder about the theory of evolution concept that the differentiation between species began very early. All primates devloped at the same time in the same region from very prmitive organisms. Whether they actually had one common ancestor or not is questionable. I don't know. The primates develped at about the same time under the same conditions. That may be why they are so much alike. Even if there are common ancestors, I believe the diferentiation of species began earlier not later.

In closing, thanks Jon for your research and knowledge on these matters. I highly respect your expertise in this matter.

Regardless how the process of evolution developed, there is no question tht all humans alive have common ancestors. Thanks for pointing that out. The idea that even the apes may have common ancestors with humans is a bit unsettling to some people. It is still a theory. But then religion is based on faith which can't be proven either. Religion is something to believe.

Originally posted by jonb+Feb 24 2005, 05:53 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jonb &#064; Feb 24 2005, 05:53 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Freddie53@Feb 23 2005, 09:43 AM
I never understood how Native Americans were classified as Mongoloid. Except they supposedly came from Asia. I kept asking in class why they didn&#39;t look the same as the folks in Asia. Teachers didn&#39;t know. When I was young, my grandmother said there were five races: red, yellow, black, brown and white. They has always made more sense then the three. But then the teacher said it was based on skeleton joints and such. So I don&#39;t know. I think ethnic background is much more important anyway. If a devout religious right person wants to marry a Muslim, there is going to be major culture and belief problems. NOt that is is wrong to marry. That is much more a problem, then agreeing on what color the babies hair is going to be. No discussion. It is what is will be. Period.

The idea that Indians came from Asia began with Jose de Acosta. This was back when maps had this crazy idea of North America extending all the way to China, but it became popular because of two people, Ales Hrdlicka and Paul Martin. Hrdlicka was a turn-of-the-century anthropologist with a half-assed explanation (e.g., if a human skeleton was found, it was just a burial from people who really practiced cremation) to discredit every find of Pleistocene habitation of the Americas because he had a "progressive" view of evolution, so anything from the Upper Pleistocene would be neanderthal. Martin, OTOH, believed that humans were responsible for a blitzkrieg (Note Martin&#39;s invocation of Godwin&#39;s law.) wiping out large Pleistocene mammals. It&#39;s slowly being discredited. Here are a few reasons:

*DNA. Definitely doesn&#39;t match the Pacific Rim. Actually, it really doesn&#39;t match anywhere that easily.
*Human habitation. Some 50,000 years in South Carolina and Piaui (a province of Brazil) now. By contrast, eastern Siberia&#39;s only been inhabited by modern humans for 10,000 years. One could rely on other parts of the Pacific Rim, but you only get other hominids in any reasonable distance until around 40,000 years ago. It&#39;s also older than anything in Alaska or Canada.
*Our actual features. Not only are our features so un-Oriental, but the differences are of a type which really wouldn&#39;t survive well in Pleistocene Alaska. Longer legs, larger ears, and the absence of the epicanthic fold. (In fact, one term I&#39;ve heard for non-Indians is "moon monkeys", a reference to light skin, short legs, and hairiness.)
*Diseases. As you know, Indians and smallpox don&#39;t really get along. Nor do Indians and syphilis, measels, mumps, malaria, or tuberculosis. But our immune system reacts to intestinal parasites pretty well. Needless to say, intestinal parasites spend part of their life cycle outside a host and therefore vulnerable to the cold.
*The Cordilleran and the Laurentide. In an awkward story similar to the parting of the Red Sea, a warm, biologically-rich corridor only a couple hundred metres wide was the "orthodox" explanation for how humans got into the American interior. But now it&#39;s been proven that they touched during the Upper Pleistocene.

I just wish I understood all what you wrote about. I don&#39;t. Those big words are beyond me. But I am not too proud to admit it. We are all humans, and our differeences are still less then the breeds in the dog species, much less.

Well, gematria isn&#39;t really a biological phenomenon. It&#39;s a superstition. Christian gematria considers 3 and 7 proper numbers. Many Enlightenment thinkers spelled out three races to fit that gematria.

Holophyletic, paraphyletic, and polyphyletic refer to whether or not a taxon has a common ancestor also of that taxon: In polyphyletic categories, they don&#39;t; in paraphyletic categories, they do, but so do organisms not in that taxon; in holophyletic categories, all descendants of that ancestor are part of the category. Here&#39;s an example:

Holophyletic: All birds.
Paraphyletic: All flying birds.
Polyphyletic: All flying animals.

Turkistan is a region in Central Asia. It includes northwestern China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and northern Afghanistan.

Oh, and evolution actually says that all organisms share a common ancestor some 4 billion years back.

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[jonb]

But then you get to the issue of Occam&#39;s razor. The DNA doesn&#39;t easily match anywhere in the eastern hemisphere. An easier solution is to just say the odd man out split first; that&#39;s what geneticists have done with every other population when tracking phylogeny.

 

[Freddie53]

Originally posted by jonb@Feb 25 2005, 02:09 PM
But then you get to the issue of Occam&#39;s razor. The DNA doesn&#39;t easily match anywhere in the eastern hemisphere. An easier solution is to just say the odd man out split first; that&#39;s what geneticists have done with every other population when tracking phylogeny.

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All of this makes me even more believe that ethnic groups are much more reliable and useful than racial profiling all humans into any number set of races. And with ethnic groups people have choices. Many American blacks completely have a European culture. And in the south some whites have developed an African-American culture. And the list goes on. Many Japenese Americans have been here enough generations that there is almost no elements of Japanese culture. Only in looks do they indicate Japanese. Many of the Japanese Americans are Christians and have been to the finest private schools over several generations and have the art of high society American/English culture down when many people descended from peoples from Britain no nothing of high society American/English culture.

And you can choose to leave or join an ethnic group. And ethnic groups are becoming at least in America, more tolerent of others and "acopting those who wish to become part of an ethnic group through marriage or any other means.

I just feel more comfortable with ethnic groups because people have a choice there. To refuse someone to practice a culture because of their birth or skin color or physical characteristics to me is just wrong.

The exceptions are clubs or associations based on linege that you actually trace. That is different.

Again Jon you come through. I don&#39;t completely understand the odd man out though. But I interpret it to mean IGNORE the evidence. OR make up some excuse for it that is simply that. OH well, we think that these people are different because........

The fact is that when the Europeans got here after 1492 with Columbus and his successors, white blond blue eyed people were found here. Small pox and other diseases wiped out some of these groups.

Most Americans aren&#39;t aware of the tremendous affect on populations when Europeans came into contact with Native Americans. The death toll from diease on both sides is tremendous. Without modern medicene, both groups were vulnerable to diseases previously only known on the other continent.

According to what I was taught in a graduate course on Native Americans, the population of Native Americans made a major plundge due to diseases like small pox which the Native Americans had not dealth with and there was no natural immunity within the varoius Native American groups.

This graduate course was a workshop class, with a little literature, a little art, a little history and such. It was a four day workshop from 8 in the morning until late each night for four days. Only one or two workshop classes can count towards an actual masters degree. So I didn&#39;t get that well versed in Native American culture. What I did learn was that a lot that I had been taught as a child wasn&#39;t accurate at all. We had maybe four hours of lecture on Native American culture, history and origins. And yes, the guy doing the study debunked the idea that most Native Americans came across from Asia through Siberia. he named the groups that he thought did and it was mainly Eskimos and some other small groups which I have forgotten. This guy&#39;s theory was that there was a time when sea level was lower and it exposed several islands between South America and Micronesia which is all those islands in the Pacific Rim. He believed that at least some groups in South America came across that way. But he concluded that there were some groups here that just didn&#39;t match up with anyone from either east or west.

My answer is that people have been in the Americas far far longer then previously thoght and that a separate racial group developed from several various migrations and now makes it impossible to trace any more than we can trace the racail grouops in Eastern Hemisphere. No one can explain those either from a linage point,

Would love to hear your thoughts on this Jon. Tell us your theories of the development of the various groups of Native Americans here. I would find them extremely facinating to read.

If you have sources that are fairly common feel free to list them. I&#39;m sure our local library will have them if they are fairly universal. I would love to read about this. With my eyes it will take a while, but I would find it very facinating. List the ones with the easiest reading level first. Been a while since graduate school.

 

[jonb]

Freddie -- What I meant was, usually, the most genetically distinct population is the one to split first. In fact, for all other phylogeny, they do that. But some k00ks looking for tenure have really caught on to this idea of whites being in North America first, so the media report it. (It&#39;s kinda like creationism, "race and IQ", and alternative medicine: If you disagree with them, the k00k starts getting delusions of martyrdom.) I don&#39;t knokw about light skin; I haven&#39;t heard of any cases of it. I know a Mandan woman with sort of "greenish-brown" eyes. What I mean is, her irises look kinda like muddy grass; green, with flecks of brown. But the last full-blooded Mandan died in the 70s.

I&#39;ve heard the Pacific one; habitation of Polynesia is relatively new, though. I mean, Easter Island was only colonized around 1100 years ago. I&#39;ve also heard one involving aborigines via Antarctica, but I&#39;m going to put that in the negative; of course, by the time the Bushies are done, Antarctica may well be habitable. I personally don&#39;t have any theories. I&#39;m more conservative, the uber-skeptic there to pick apart others&#39; theories. It&#39;s an important job; without people like me, science would become religion (e.g., all obscure arcana).

ChimeraTX -- To put it bluntly, the greatest correlation I can find between genetics and IQ (at least among twin studies which actually let me review their work) is about .4. That&#39;s r, not r^2. It gets worse with other types of psychometrics: .35 for sexual orientation, .2 for machismo/marianismo, .1 for neuroticism . . . Either way, races are mostly polyphyletic or paraphyletic categories and therefore have no biological significance; if they did, bees would be birds.

 

[jonb]

It&#39;s called cladistics. Actually, there&#39;s more biological significance to blood groups. (If you were A or B and you were to give me an organ or a blood transfusion, I, being O, would die. That&#39;s pretty significant.)

 

[Freddie53]

Chimera, sure you have a point and a valid one too. My point was even though in general there is a higher percentage of tall black guys playing basketball, I should be judged sololy on my ability to play basketball, not what color by skin, hair, dick size or any other statistic not relating to basketball. (If what we are talking about is playing basketball.)

Also in looking at statistics, for instance, test performance is poorer in black students than white students. That would make some assume that whites are smarter. But here is another statistic, if you look at only the socio-economic level, then children of parents who have college degrees, live in the suberbs, and make over a certain amount of money have about the same college intrence scores regardless of racial background.

So we have to look at all the different variables before we can make a definitive statement concerning the reasons why some people score higher then others on those standardized tests. But do ski color or racial backgroun realy matter when judging the performance of two students on a standardized test that they both took at the same time?

Jonb. I read about a blue eyed blonde group of people living in the middle west of America that were wiped out by small pox when the colonization of America began in the early 1600&#39;s. This was a small group and was thought to be descendent of some Vickings who had explored some of America several centuries earlier.

My personal belief is that humans were here a lot longer than most "experts" believe. I think that explains why Native Amerians as a group don&#39;t just as fit a profile of any other group in the world except other Native Americans.

Originally posted by ChimeraTX+Feb 26 2005, 04:01 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ChimeraTX &#064; Feb 26 2005, 04:01 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-jonb@Feb 26 2005, 03:37 PM
Freddie -- What I meant was, usually, the most genetically distinct population is the one to split first. In fact, for all other phylogeny, they do that. But some k00ks looking for tenure have really caught on to this idea of whites being in North America first, so the media report it. (It&#39;s kinda like creationism, "race and IQ", and alternative medicine: If you disagree with them, the k00k starts getting delusions of martyrdom.) I don&#39;t knokw about light skin; I haven&#39;t heard of any cases of it. I know a Mandan woman with sort of "greenish-brown" eyes. What I mean is, her irises look kinda like muddy grass; green, with flecks of brown. But the last full-blooded Mandan died in the 70s.

I&#39;ve heard the Pacific one; habitation of Polynesia is relatively new, though. I mean, Easter Island was only colonized around 1100 years ago. I&#39;ve also heard one involving aborigines via Antarctica, but I&#39;m going to put that in the negative; of course, by the time the Bushies are done, Antarctica may well be habitable. I personally don&#39;t have any theories. I&#39;m more conservative, the uber-skeptic there to pick apart others&#39; theories. It&#39;s an important job; without people like me, science would become religion (e.g., all obscure arcana).

ChimeraTX -- To put it bluntly, the greatest correlation I can find between genetics and IQ (at least among twin studies which actually let me review their work) is about .4. That&#39;s r, not r^2. It gets worse with other types of psychometrics: .35 for sexual orientation, .2 for machismo/marianismo, .1 for neuroticism . . . Either way, races are mostly polyphyletic or paraphyletic categories and therefore have no biological significance; if they did, bees would be birds.

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LMAO. Sure, since bees aren&#39;t birds race has no biological significance. If a certain group is different from another group then there is biological significance in my opinion. I don&#39;t know why people would think differences are insignificant. That 0.01% difference means a whole lot when it comes down to it.

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[Dr. Dilznick]

Just curious, JonB, do you post at the Racial Reality forums?

 

[jonb]

The what forums?

 

[jonb]

Err . . . No. Northern blacks score higher than Southern whites. And the fact remains, twin studies only have a .4 correlation. (.85 is the minimum for social significance.)

"Fast-twitch muscles". CiS I mean, you really shouldn&#39;t use a sport with a seven-and-a-half-foot Chinese guy as proof of race&#39;s biological significance.

 

[Dr. Dilznick]

Originally posted by jonb@Feb 28 2005, 06:35 PM
The what forums?

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http://racialreality.shorturl.com/
http://dodona.proboards35.com/index.cgi? (message board)

Oops… The information available through the website is not as "scientific" as I thought it would be. Didn&#39;t mean to insult your intelligence.

 

[13788]

doubtless_mouse: Likewise, I would consider basketball to a somewhat self selective. There is a stereotype associated with African-Americans and basketball. If your idea that they are just genetically better selected for basketball, then one could likewise assume (yes I used the A word) that they would be better at volleyball which has very similar requirements as basketball (and if you were to look at some pro-volleyball teams from around the world, you might easily think they were basketball players due to their height and general build). Yet i don&#39;t recall seeing that many African-Americans playing volleyball. It is socially accepted (and expected) that African-Americans play basketball and play it well (and I attribute this to the reasoning you keep putting forth - STEREOTYPES). You keep mentioning DNA differences between the races, what DNA difference are you refering to? i can&#39;t find any mention of consistent genetic markers or traits that allow for subdivisions of races. Actually i have found the exact opposite. Based on a study conducted in 1974 io Harvard biologist R.C. Lawrence, almost 85 percent of humans genetic diversity lies between individuals belonging to the same population (i.e. generally, the same nation or tribe). An additional 8.3 percent of genetic varience is accounted for by difference between populations with the same "race." This left only 6.3% of genetic diversity acounted by interracial differences.

Depending on which "trait" you wish to use to group populations into "races," the results of multivariate analyses do not support the idea of biological "races." depending on what trait you are useing the groupings tend to change, i.e. Cephalic Index (a standard crainal measurement), groups Australian Aborigines with Bantus, Bushmen with Eskimos, and Chinese with Norwegians; Body Size grouping has several Asian populations grouped with Bushmen as ""intermediate" in height, while Finns, Bayutsis, and northern Chinese are combined in the "tall" category; using the ability to taste PTC (phenylethiocarbamide), groups NAvejoes with West Africans and Finnish Lapps, Malaysians with Spaniards, and English with Bombay Indians.

No clear genetic map exists for classifing the biological races. As said by Johnathan Marks of Yale University, "You may group humans into a small number of races if you want to, but you are denied biology as a support for it." To understand human variation, we need to look at the individual traits and not the races.

The issue of race is a tough one, nothing we say or show you will convince you to see things our way. When we talk of celebrating the differences between races, we are refering to culture not genetic traits. Humans have as much diversity in their cultures as they do in their genes, and this is the diversity we should celebrate. I live in Japan (for 14 years now), their culture is much different than ours, it is not that are geneticly different from us and that is why their culture is different, they are just like us genetically. I am AB+, but so are many Japanese. My wife is O, but so are many Caucasians. My son is B+, but so are many Africans. If there truely was a difference in the races it would be seen in an area like this, or maybe in the succsess or lack of succsess of interracial breeding, yet every race can interbreed with everyother race (with the same percentage chance of succsess and failure).

Ramblings from the Mouse.

 

[Freddie53]

To the mouse:

I think we might accomplish more if we started posting recipes. We aren&#39;t going to change this guy&#39;s mind. I can&#39;t agree that blacks have a lower IQ then Whites. Certainly going to small sub groups in certain areas you find this to be true do to nutrition and environment. But, to say that as a group all people classifed as white are smarter then all the people classifed as black are ...... any thing except physical differences is shaky ground.

This guy wants to provide help. Sure I agree. But base it on each individual&#39;s need. Not on a whole sub culture or sub racial or sub any thing else. I shouldn&#39;t be denied help that others can get because I failed the skin test, or the nose shape test, or the slim hip test. If that is what we are headed to on this thread, then it is time to start posting receipes.


As far as this post. I won&#39;t make any comment on it Mr. Mouse. You have said it well and it doesn&#39;t need additional clarification. Except on your DNA analysis. According to what I was taught recently. Through the female only, they can trace ancestry through DNA. In this way they can tell some difference in racial groups.
According to what I was taught there were four major migrations to North America and that was found out through this DNA test. I can&#39;t further comment on DNA because all I can do is quote someone. I don&#39;t really know enough to be an expert on it. But I think I can tell which scientists know and which ones are blowing smoke if I read up enough on it.

Originally posted by doubtless_mouse@Mar 1 2005, 09:21 AM
Likewise, I would consider basketball to a somewhat self selective. There is a stereotype associated with African-Americans and basketball. If your idea that they are just genetically better selected for basketball, then one could likewise assume (yes I used the A word) that they would be better at volleyball which has very similar requirements as basketball (and if you were to look at some pro-volleyball teams from around the world, you might easily think they were basketball players due to their height and general build). Yet i don&#39;t recall seeing that many African-Americans playing volleyball. It is socially accepted (and expected) that African-Americans play basketball and play it well (and I attribute this to the reasoning you keep putting forth - STEREOTYPES). You keep mentioning DNA differences between the races, what DNA difference are you refering to? i can&#39;t find any mention of consistent genetic markers or traits that allow for subdivisions of races. Actually i have found the exact opposite. Based on a study conducted in 1974 io Harvard biologist R.C. Lawrence, almost 85 percent of humans genetic diversity lies between individuals belonging to the same population (i.e. generally, the same nation or tribe). An additional 8.3 percent of genetic varience is accounted for by difference between populations with the same "race." This left only 6.3% of genetic diversity acounted by interracial differences.

Depending on which "trait" you wish to use to group populations into "races," the results of multivariate analyses do not support the idea of biological "races." depending on what trait you are useing the groupings tend to change, i.e. Cephalic Index (a standard crainal measurement), groups Australian Aborigines with Bantus, Bushmen with Eskimos, and Chinese with Norwegians; Body Size grouping has several Asian populations grouped with Bushmen as ""intermediate" in height, while Finns, Bayutsis, and northern Chinese are combined in the "tall" category; using the ability to taste PTC (phenylethiocarbamide), groups NAvejoes with West Africans and Finnish Lapps, Malaysians with Spaniards, and English with Bombay Indians.

No clear genetic map exists for classifing the biological races. As said by Johnathan Marks of Yale University, "You may group humans into a small number of races if you want to, but you are denied biology as a support for it." To understand human variation, we need to look at the individual traits and not the races.

The issue of race is a tough one, nothing we say or show you will convince you to see things our way. When we talk of celebrating the differences between races, we are refering to culture not genetic traits. Humans have as much diversity in their cultures as they do in their genes, and this is the diversity we should celebrate. I live in Japan (for 14 years now), their culture is much different than ours, it is not that are geneticly different from us and that is why their culture is different, they are just like us genetically. I am AB+, but so are many Japanese. My wife is O, but so are many Caucasians. My son is B+, but so are many Africans. If there truely was a difference in the races it would be seen in an area like this, or maybe in the succsess or lack of succsess of interracial breeding, yet every race can interbreed with everyother race (with the same percentage chance of succsess and failure).

Ramblings from the Mouse.

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[13788]

doubtless_mouse: Freddie - on the female DNA issue, if I am correct, this is in reference to studies done with mtDNA (or Mitochondrial DNA). mtDNA is only inherited from the female, as it is contained in the cytoplasm (males contribute almost no cytoplasm). The study of mtDNA has caused a lot of controversy and disagreement among anthropologists regarding the validity of the study. Many believe that mtDNA studies support the Rapid-Replacement model of human evolution. This model sometimes referred to as the Out of Africa model points to all modern Homo sapiens as stemming from an African origin and spreading from there. While the studies have many problems, the supporting evidence; mtDNA, fossil evidence, genetic research, etc, points to this as being the most likely origin of our species.

ChimeraTX - a debate has to be two sided. I would like to know (because I cannot find) any credible source that helped you develop your ideas about the evolution of our species. I would especially like to read what you have found on DNA because as I mentioned earlier, I have not been able to find anything that supports a biological classification for "races." I cannot and will not state that what I posted (which is regurgitated college study) is 100% correct. I can&#39;t. I have a very open mind, and while I do not favor the idea that there may be a biological base for the "races," I would like to see the information first hand to allow me to review and form my own opinions.

Lastly, you had asked if I was unbiased after I explained that I lived in Japan and my children were half Japanese. I believe the idea you were asking about is that because I am in an interracial marriage (god I hate that term) I would be much more inclined to be a supporter of them. To further this I guess I would need to tell you more about me. My heritage is Irish/Native American. My mother was born and raised in Ireland and came to the states in the mid sixties, my father is a quarter Ojibwa Indian and an eight Cherokee. So that should add to the idea that I am bias in support of interracial marriages. But I am not biased; instead I am what is commonly referred to as educated. I can see both sides of a coin and make my own decisions without the baggage that many people carry around. I don&#39;t think anyone is better than anyone else. I strongly agree with something Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote, "All men are created equal." And truly believe that we as a species (and especially American as a country) need to stop trying to find ways in which we are different from one another. I am a supporter of non-traditional theories on Intelligence, specifically the Multiple Intelligence Theory as put forth by Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University. This theory allows (IMO) for better ways to measure someone’s intelligence (though I don&#39;t really think IQ testing of any sort is needed). I have lived for almost 34 years on this big blue dot and consider myself a citizen of the world. If that makes me biased then I guess I am.

I would love to continue this thread as I have found it entertaining, educational, and down right fun.

Ramblings from the Mouse

Will try to make subsequent posts shorter.

 

[jonb]

Hell, Thomas Jefferson had a thing for black women, init?

 

[13788]

doubtless_mouse: ChimeraTX - Glad to hear we are still talking. I look forward to your links.

On the idea of bias, don’t worry, you didn&#39;t insult me. There is nothing in this world you could do that would insult me as we are having a discussion that I am freely taking part in.

But I did want to discuss the idea of bias in greater depth. I don&#39;t support/believe the idea of races being a biological construct and instead think it is a social construct. What we commonly refer to as races is to me nothing more than a different morphology of the same species (much like some Golden Retrievers are more yellow and some are more red but all are still just Golden Retrievers). As my view or beliefs about races negate them, then it would be hard to argue that I have a bias because my wife is Japanese. If on the other hand, I did believe in the biological construct of races, then my wife being Japanese could be used to argue that I do have bias. I stopped supporting the idea of races a long time ago (long before I met my wife and had children). In conversations, I explain that my children are "half" Japanese, but in reality they are completely Japanese. I explain they are half Japanese because the culture they are part of is different than the one most people grew up in and it helps in showing a perspective (especially if I were to tell you stories about my children because a lot of the terms, and meaning is tied to the culture they are from). My children are human, nothing more and nothing less, they just have a slightly different morphology than their piers (meaning a less pronounced epicanthic fold on their eyes, lighter skin color, and lighter hair color). While I am embarrassed to say this, my children speak English as well as any Japanese child of the same age (meaning not very well), they think like a Japanese person, they eat like a Japanese person, as they are Japanese. The definitive line that separates them from Americans isn&#39;t the genes they inherited from their mother, but instead is the culture they have grown up in, the language they speak, and the world they live in.

Please continue the discussion I will be here, I would also love to discuss any views you have on cultures, and how they have been influenced by evolution.

Ramblings from the Mouse.

P.S. Last post was 570 words, this post was only 429 words.

 

[Freddie53]

keep it going "The Mouse" I basically support you. Of course cultureand abilities of the person is vastly more important than physical characteristics such as hair color, skin color, eye color, nose shape and etc. If a blue eyed blond is the best basketball player in the country, then he is. We can&#39;t say. Oh, oops, he isn&#39;t black. Those points don&#39;t count.

And yes we do categorize people by physical characteristics and someone came up with three races. Well, Europian White and African Black are easy to disntinguish and then everyone else is just put together and called Mongeloid? Then maybe there are five.

For sure there are no pure races around. All have intermingled throughout the past. The migrations of people have seen to that. And it is pretty well an accepted concept that all humans originated in Africa and then spread throughout the world.

I must go. I know. A short post from me. This will catch some folk&#39;s eye.

Keep it up "The Mouse"

Freddie


F


K

Originally posted by doubtless_mouse@Mar 3 2005, 09:26 AM
ChimeraTX - Glad to hear we are still talking. I look forward to your links.

On the idea of bias, don’t worry, you didn&#39;t insult me. There is nothing in this world you could do that would insult me as we are having a discussion that I am freely taking part in.

But I did want to discuss the idea of bias in greater depth. I don&#39;t support/believe the idea of races being a biological construct and instead think it is a social construct. What we commonly refer to as races is to me nothing more than a different morphology of the same species (much like some Golden Retrievers are more yellow and some are more red but all are still just Golden Retrievers). As my view or beliefs about races negate them, then it would be hard to argue that I have a bias because my wife is Japanese. If on the other hand, I did believe in the biological construct of races, then my wife being Japanese could be used to argue that I do have bias. I stopped supporting the idea of races a long time ago (long before I met my wife and had children). In conversations, I explain that my children are "half" Japanese, but in reality they are completely Japanese. I explain they are half Japanese because the culture they are part of is different than the one most people grew up in and it helps in showing a perspective (especially if I were to tell you stories about my children because a lot of the terms, and meaning is tied to the culture they are from). My children are human, nothing more and nothing less, they just have a slightly different morphology than their piers (meaning a less pronounced epicanthic fold on their eyes, lighter skin color, and lighter hair color). While I am embarrassed to say this, my children speak English as well as any Japanese child of the same age (meaning not very well), they think like a Japanese person, they eat like a Japanese person, as they are Japanese. The definitive line that separates them from Americans isn&#39;t the genes they inherited from their mother, but instead is the culture they have grown up in, the language they speak, and the world they live in.

Please continue the discussion I will be here, I would also love to discuss any views you have on cultures, and how they have been influenced by evolution.

Ramblings from the Mouse.

P.S. Last post was 570 words, this post was only 429 words.

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[D_Humper E Bogart]

Hmmm, the articles do bring up one flaw. The markers they are using are not genes, but consnesus sequences that mutate (almost) randomly. No one in their right mind would want a perfect piece of garbage DNA. (Well, I know some people want gold toilets, but that&#39;s a different argument.) Anyway, while a marker can be used to identify people and subclassify people. No two individuals have the same marker anyway, they repidly mutate within a population as well as betwen populations.

Oh well, at least I can hope to get a good grade in my Evolutionary Genetics exam&#33;

 

[Freddie53]

Read the first one. And there is a lot of confussion here. Of course there is evolution. We have proved this with the domesticated cow and breeding of dogs. We can make dogs taller and smaller and all of that Humans are not different.

So according to this, All modern humans came from Africa and the difererientation into "racail groups" happened about 15,000 years ago which makes all humans fairly closesly related to each other especially since there have so many migrations.

We know that if we put Africans in a primitive culture arond the Arctic Circle that in 10,000 years, they would probably be very light skinned. We know that we can take blond blue eyed people and put them in Africa in a primitive culture and wait 10,000 years and they will pobably be very dark. That is because the fittest always survice and it is the darkest skinned people in Africa reproducing and the lightest skinned people reproducing in the North.

Species have always evolved to meet environment needs. Nothing new.

My point in all of this debate is that when it comes to selecting people to do things we should look to an individual&#39;s abilities, not to his subspecies average to determine whether to hire or select that person for the task at hand.


It is only the business of the two perosns involved if they want to pursue a romantic involvement, get married and have children.

All this is it race or not? Well it is defintely cultural groups for sure. I think I can usually tell if a person has an African-American heritage or an English heritage.

Yes, the first article was informattive and I will read the others later.

Originally posted by ChimeraTX@Mar 3 2005, 05:24 PM
Subspecies(races) are just different morphologies of the same species. I haven&#39;t argued when didn&#39;t come from Africa, because that is the way the skeletal evidence points. I apologize for digressing. I&#39;ve had some of my friends help me compile a list of links, here they are:

http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/miele.htm

http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jyinger/Cla...ings/5-Pops.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/...50128221025.htm

I don&#39;t have enough time to find anymore. I&#39;ll get them later. There&#39;s one about the detrimental effects of racial interbreeding as well, and I&#39;ll get them for you later, Mouse.

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