Beauty Contest

[Arachnofiend]

Looks can be deceiving. Also, obfuscating stupidity is a real thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of the leaders historically employed this strategy, especially the female ones, with misogyny being what it is.

I don't think Catherine would have been one to act the idiot; being clearly competent and well-suited to guiding Russia into a golden age is what convinced the Cossacks to oust her husband in favor of her in the first place. She was also well known throughout Europe as a patron of the arts and sciences, being one of the Enlightened Despots and all.

Granted, misogyny being what it is, I wouldn't be surprised if plenty of diplomats conversed with her expecting exactly that.

 

[JokerJace]

That guy from the videos doesn't really sound like a serious genetecist. More like an idealist that hates racism and isn't too precise about finding "evidence" that supports his idealistic view. Also in the description you can read that he acknowledges that human races do exist and admits errors in his past releases. So he breaks it all down to "fundamental biological differences that are inherent" don't exist. And that's trivial for anyone who ever heard anything about evolution. Yet those differences that derived from evolution DO exist.
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And everything in measurable reality is continuous and thus not discrete and thus not seperatable into groups, unless being arbitrary, because the number of required groups would be infinite. (Or at least as big as the number of examples) To apply this on "human race" is no big insight. The interesting question is rather if it is sufficient to make certain separations in regard to certain purposes. For example, if I create my "buckets" in a certain way to determine the chances of certain properties to apply to certain individuals: Will my hypotheses have significantly increased chances to be true over a distribution that is truly 100% arbitrary? Now that's serious science! And if I find buckets like this, it is absolutely justified to label them.

 

[Pythakoreas]

Theodora at 99 votes!

 

[Nato_]

As Theodora nears 100, I have a question: just what *is* that on the top of her head, like starting soon above her brows? Is that some type of helmet her hair is tucked up into, or is that supposed to be her actual hair? But it is so glossy.

That's what ruins Theodora for me. That's just me though, the rest of her is neat.

 

[Tiggurix]

It makes me think her duplicitous.

But of course she is! All the leaders are, with few exceptions (Shaka and Genghis amonsgt them, funnily enough).

 

[Tiggurix]

That guy from the videos doesn't really sound like a serious genetecist. More like an idealist that hates racism and isn't too precise about finding "evidence" that supports his idealistic view. Also in the description you can read that he acknowledges that human races do exist and admits errors in his past releases. So he breaks it all down to "fundamental biological differences that are inherent" don't exist. And that's trivial for anyone who ever heard anything about evolution. Yet those differences that derived from evolution DO exist.
---
And everything in measurable reality is continuous and thus not discrete and thus not seperatable into groups, unless being arbitrary, because the number of required groups would be infinite. (Or at least as big as the number of examples) To apply this on "human race" is no big insight. The interesting question is rather if it is sufficient to make certain separations in regard to certain purposes. For example, if I create my "buckets" in a certain way to determine the chances of certain properties to apply to certain individuals: Will my hypotheses have significantly increased chances to be true over a distribution that is truly 100% arbitrary? Now that's serious science! And if I find buckets like this, it is absolutely justified to label them.

1) He never claimed he's a geneticist. He's a molecular biologist, which, while similar, is another field of expertise. Also, ALL biologists should have some knowledge of genetics.

2) Who doesn't hate racism? The obvious answer is, a racist, which I suspect you to be.

3) His point is, while one could say that human races exist, one could either, by going at the points in the populations' combined genetics, either go with the answer that "one human race exists I.E. the human species" or that "over 400 races exist, most of them in Africa". In either case, it is not the way that the US, among others, define race that is the correct way.

4) His other point is, even if we assume multiple human races exist, there are no significant inbuilt predispositions from one to the other. Even if Jamaicans and Kenyans consistently are better at running than other nationalities, their giftedness in sprinting is probably more due to social pressure to be a good sprinter and/or the environment which they train in. "Race essentialism" is a harmful mode of thinking, due to there being minimal differences among the human population.

 

[JokerJace]

2) Who doesn't hate racism? The obvious answer is, a racist, which I suspect you to be.

Ad hominem wins every argument, am I right? It's just that a point of view that derives from pure idealism usually has nothing to do with reality anymore - from my experience. No matter how justified any hate may be, if that is your main ambition, you are most likely not being too precise about your elaborations. I'm not even mentioning that he's mainly using platitudes all the time.

3) His point is, while one could say that human races exist, one could either, by going at the points in the populations' combined genetics, either go with the answer that "one human race exists I.E. the human species" or that "over 400 races exist, most of them in Africa". In either case, it is not the way that the US, among others, define race that is the correct way.

All words only serve the purpose of a general intuitive grasp, evolve over time and adapt to their common use, unless you are talking out of a strictly scientific context. If that's your standard and every meaning is applied to a specific area of expertise, most words in daily conversations are used incorrectly. If the goal is mutual understanding, you have to abstract from that. Also there is no correct way to define anything. You can make a definition and agree to use that one in the context of a specific system, that's all. If two people talk about "races" and share an intuition about the meaning of the word and thus are capable to communicate, there is nothing wrong about that, even if there are other definitions for the word. Words only try to give you an idea of abstract concepts anyway. As I said, mutual understanding is the goal in any conversation.

4) His other point is, even if we assume multiple human races exist, there are no significant inbuilt predispositions from one to the other. Even if Jamaicans and Kenyans consistently are better at running than other nationalities, their giftedness in sprinting is probably more due to social pressure to be a good sprinter and/or the environment which they train in. "Race essentialism" is a harmful mode of thinking, due to there being minimal differences among the human population.

We already agreed about the inbuilt predispositions. Something like that would be completely contrary to the concept of evolution and no considerable scientist would even acknowledge the existence of such a theory. I rather find this kind of ideas in theological works. But...

For many geneticist this is actually a very popular example of how evolution works, respectively among humans. (although I am not able to disqualify the social aspect, I just haven't heard anything about it so far (I wonder why there should be no social pressure in certain social groups in other nations?)) Anyway... The environment in which they train is also the environment in which their ancestors lived for thouands of years. Obviously this results in adaptive features that differ from - let's say - Inuit people. How you like to design your buckets now or if there even is need to design them is purely quarrel about semantics. If you do it, be sure to apply the major rules of stochastics and you're safe.

 

[MantaRevan]

1)
2) Who doesn't hate racism? The obvious answer is, a racist, which I suspect you to be.

Please let's not do this. It isn't conductive to good discourse to do this. Plus, most racism isn't blatant KKK style racists that are 'ok' with it. It's the subtle prejudices and profiling of people who don't think themselves racist.

1) Even if Jamaicans and Kenyans consistently are better at running than other nationalities, their giftedness in sprinting is probably more due to social pressure to be a good sprinter and/or the environment which they train in. "

While this is true for most situations, the main reason for this is that Africa actually has the greatest genetic variance of any place is the world for human beings. Remember that humans from all non-African regions are thought to be descended from a very specific group of African hominids that migrated out Africa, leaving the vast majority of the human genome still in Africa. This is why there is so much genetic variance there. Some of the fastest runners are found there, and we know them because they put themselves in public spotlight athletically speaking. What most people wouldn't know, however, is that some of the slowest runners are also there as a result of the diversity. You wouldn't know it though, because naturally slow runners don't get a lot of attention.

1) Race essentialism" is a harmful mode of thinking, due to there being minimal differences among the human population.

I agree with you. But this is off topic, and this thread doesn't need to be closed because a spam war broke out.

 

[Tiggurix]

Please let's not do this. It isn't conductive to good discourse to do this. Plus, most racism isn't blatant KKK style racists that are 'ok' with it. It's the subtle prejudices and profiling of people who don't think themselves racist.

You're right. Sorry. Also, even though those people do not think of themselves as racist, they still are, because of these subtle prejudices and such. That's why we have a term like "casual racism", and it's also the reason I think it would be best if we just do away with the concept of "races" in humans entirely.

But yes, it would be best if we just stopped this discussion at that.

 

[Jerman]

Wrong thread derp...

 

[Pythakoreas]

Wrong thread derp...

Well thanks for commenting and bumping this thread up in the forum.

 

[Callonia]

I voted for Isabella, I'm surprised I chose her when I was made to vote in the poll.