How many races in the world?

[ironduck]

I'm not sure that the argument between Marla Singer and Ironduck is really anything more than about words. They both agree that there are differences between (say) a black person and a white person. That is obvious. Marla's point is that you can't create an abstraction on the basis of those differences and call it a "race", because to do so is arbitrary, and you might as well make an abstraction on the basis of different hair colour, height, etc. Surely the point is that you can make such an abstraction when it is useful to do so - as in the medical examples that Ironduck gives - but really you are only saying, when you do so, that people with certain physical characteristics are especially prone to certain diseases, or whatever it might be. The mistake is when you "reify" that abstraction and think of it as a thing in itself, or as a set of categories that are definitive and which everyone must belong to.

Well, my point is that whatever you choose to call these groupings of people it makes *sense* to group people from a biological perspective. The reasons it make sense are multiple, and I mentioned two - medicine and charting of migrations in history. When people enter a hospital there can be good medical reasons to mark them down as a 'race' for lack of a better term (since this word is so infested with a terrible history). And the funny thing is that when people report themselves as belonging to this or that race, they are usually correct in the aforementioned medical terms. In other words, it makes practical sense to do these groupings, it's not a useless subjective construction like Marla Singer appears to claim. And that's all I was saying.

I'm not surprised this is a heated issue, and I really couldn't care less about races from a general viewpoint, but no one had brought up the issue I mentioned and it's a relevant one in today's world.

 

[LouLong]

And, partly related to medicine, is the issue of cosmetics where the main international brands are kind of divided into 3 main groups : namely Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. Since many cosmetics are related to hair and skin, this is a valuable division, technical and marketing. And if it remains in these fields I consider them ok.

Edit : it actually breaks my heart to have to agree with Ironduck (aka evil hungry Scotsmen) but I must admit I do

 

[wit>trope]

Get over yourselves! Race dose in fact exist, but its (primarilly) based on bone structure

In particuler, the classifacation of skull structure, and facial features; colour dosent even enter the picture, its possible to be a very dark (what many would call "black") and still be, technically, a caucasian- this site, posted previouslly (though I've known of it for a while) offer marvelous examples.

Um there is really no one except for very ignorant people who think that race is defined by colour or defined solely by colour. I mean if a white woman spends lots and lots of time in a tanning booth, she'll eventually get skin darker than an Asian ... that don't make her Asian. Also, there are some Asians who START OUT with inherently lighter skin than some whites (especially those that live near the Mediterannean, etc.) ... and then there's the Australian aborigines and no one thinks that they are the same race as black Africans even though their skin is of about the same color and darkness ... and then there's the Indians (in Asia) and no one thinks that they are the same race as black Africans. So refuting colour and saying that you have thus refuted race is a logical fallacy known as the STRAW MAN

Anyway, scientists DO consider skin color when they form their racial, genetic, ancestral theories. Science is supposed to consider ALL the data. There is MORE THAN ONE scientific racial classification system. The one you mentioned is just one of several. Here's another one that relies heavily on genetics and mathematics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Eurasian_Supercluster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_Supercluster

The first link includes brief mention of a variation of the theory and this variation is on the a US GOVERNMENT WEBSITE:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...eve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8412653&dopt=Abstract

and also on an American government university website:

http://www.bio.psu.edu/People/Faculty/Nei/Lab/1993-nei-roychoudhury.pdf

It's quite interesting. The more conventional variation seems more solid but I don't know enough to say. Anyway both variations say that the first genetic "split" that occurs within humans is between Africans and non-Africans. So Africans and non-Africans are more different from each other and Africans more similiar amongst themselves and non-Africans more similiar amongst themselves than is any other group and its complement respectively. Then the conventional variation of the theory holds that the next "split" is within the non-Africans (so there's more diversity among the non-Africans than there is among the Africans -- contrary to popular myth and misinterpretation of science). The split is between the North Eurasian genetic supercluster and the South East Asian genetic supercluster. "North Eurasian" includes Europeans, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Amerindians, Persians, etc. "South East Asian" in this genetic context are the indigenous peoples of South East Asia, Australia, Indonesia, south India, etc -- so this wouldn't include the typical Vietnamese person of today. This theory is corrobated by linguistic data also where sometimes there have been proposed lingustic groups like "Ural-Altaic" and stuff like that. The competing theory is that the 2nd split is actually between Caucasians and non-Caucasians and the 3rd between Amerindians and the rest.

Anyway read the links. It's very interesting and since it's partly on a US government website, you can be sure it's based on solid science.

 

[thestonesfan]

There are definitely "races" of humans and they have obvious differences and characteristics. It's a well developed science. Acknowledging that doesn't mean you think any one is superior to another, so enough with the self-righteous grandstanding.

 

[Xen]

So refuting colour and saying that you have thus refuted race is a logical fallacy known as the STRAW MAN

mind pointing out where I :refuted race"

if you look at the bold words you can see that I very clearlly saying that thier is such a thing as race, and that its primary method of catogrization si one bone structue; skin colour dosent enter the picture at all, except for those who are hell bent on being superficial on the aspects of race, particualey considerign that a persons race can be indentified by thier skeletal structure, which is a major boon in police investiagtion, when a skeleton turns up; by looking at particuler compnents of the skull, one can deduce the race, and sub-race, and then compile what the average skin tone for that particuler sub race is; but skin colouration itself isnt a method of catagorization. The fact that this is an estbalished, well versed and reserched practice rather trumps all other methods, until genetics can truelly come unto its own.