Race/ethnic checkboxes

[Masquerouge]

Our problem with them is that they try counting members of ethnic groups to oppose them, should we do it for them ? I prefere 15% Front National with no discrimination than 0% Front National but discrimination.

I get your point. But we still have discrimination. Try getting a job when your name on the resume is Abdelkader.

 

[MamboJoel]

I see what you mean, but institutionalizing ethnicity precisely legitimates such discriminations.

 

[Masquerouge]

I see what you mean, but institutionalizing ethnicity precisely legitimates such discriminations.

I guess it ultimately depends on whether your country is trying to aim for an aggreggate of communities (as in the US) or trying to aim for one status above all other (French). Both models have had their shares of successes and failures.

 

[Lotus49]

I am not a biologist either, but I would prefer that people would use correct and accurate terms, not layman ones which will only obscure conversations. It's like using the layman's term for theory when arguing about what a science is. And I'm pretty sure that when you are talking about a possible biological definition of race, you'd use the operational definition of species,

Well, I think biological classifications should be re-organized/updated so that they more accurately reflect the true meanings of words. Species. Subspecies. Simple fact is, that if you take a negro, a Swede, a Chinese, etc., and compare various different traits, they are different enough from one another that unique classification for each is warranted, provided you can refrain from get enraged over deviating from "political correctness" a bit.

Science -in the traditional, long-established study- is totally inflexible. Can't go changing things that were decided 200 years ago! And you can't argue that is indeed the case, for many things. Anyway, the differences are certainly there. Distinct differences. Thus each group should be classified, scientifically. Not just the "race" side-show topic, which as you can see here, people are so offended by. "It's illegal in my country!" This sheds some light on why the correct scientific classification was not made in the first place. -To avoid raising potentially sensitive issues, plus perhaps in the spirit of an ideal unity, among mankind.

Take elephants for example (Indian/Asian & African). There are several different species, and subspecies of elephant walking on the planet right now. Savannah elephants, forest elephants, bush elephants, etc... and those are just some in Africa. Go look at them, and then consider how they're classified. Then look and the "races" of human beings, and do the same. Hmm...

"Science" is not perfect. It is nothing but a catalog of man's attempt to discover and label his surroundings, from scratch, with a certainly imperfect mind - as he sees fit. Thus, it is not gospel. A truly smart man does not put all his faith science, because to do so would be to put faith in imperfection, and then have the audacity to go around thumping it as gospel, like the religious folk thump their Bibles (literally). Neither, has all the answers. Wisdom is merely taking a step back, and acknowledging that. But, people are not comfortable with unsatisfied variables/unknowns, thus they cling to one or the other... faith or science. Very few actually THINK, which all I ask, dammit.

 

[Bill3000]

First of all, we are getting into the level of biology where neither of us are experts in - anthropology/paleoanthropology and taxonomy. If an expert on these matters could come to this thread, I would greatly appreciate it.

Second of all, I've been thinking over it, and I think that I've changed my mind a little. First of all, I have seen that when the term "race" is used in taxonomy, it seems to be a subset of subspecies. (That is, species - subspecies - race) This to me is more acceptable, but I disagree over the matter in which race is categorized and oversimplified classically. What is more likely is that the analysis and categorization of populations is more presice and accurate than a huge generalization through Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, and Australoid. So don't kill me if I seem to be inconsistant with my previous post.

Third of all, let me show you an article's abstract explaining some of the inherit problems of race.

Classifying human beings according to race and ethnicity may seem straightforward to some but it, in fact, belies a difficult process. No standard procedure exists for categorizing according to race and ethnicity, calling into question the variables' use in research. This article explores the use of race and ethnicity variables in the nursing research literature. Content analysis was conducted of a sample of 337 original research studies published in Nursing Research from the years 1952, 1955, and then every 5 years through to 2000. Of the 337 research articles reviewed, 167 mentioned race, ethnicity, or their 81 code words or phrases. Out of the 167 articles, 153 used race or ethnicity to describe the study sample, and 45 of the 167 articles included race or ethnicity as an element of data analysis. Throughout the sample, there was substantial inconsistency related to race and ethnicity categorization, meanings of the terms, and use of these variables. Specificity related to conceptual assumptions, definitions, and context was missing and, as a result, data interpretation and understanding are suspect. The integrity of nursing knowledge requires that nurse researchers recognize and address the difficulties inherent in using race and ethnicity in health research.

Mind you, ethnicity being a problem in health here makes sense- after all, an ethnicity a self-identification; ethnogenesis results in the forming of a community which recongizes itself as different from a larger community, and that relates far more to language than it does to biology.
(Probably the strongest form of ethnogenesis would be the creation of a new language, after all, which does not neccessarily correlate with biological differences)

Well, I think biological classifications should be re-organized/updated so that they more accurately reflect the true meanings of words. Species. Subspecies.

What? No science changes the meaning of words just because it is used in a different way by the layman. Science stipulates and defines words that are needed for the matter at hand. Force is defined in science as the time derivative of momentum. Does the fact that the term has layman's definitions that are more vague, and often can have completely different meanings, put a burden on the scientist to change the definition of force? No! The burden is on you, my friend, to show why it is an inaccurate term in terms of science. Your problem is that you don't know taxonomy.

Simple fact is, that if you take a negro, a Swede, a Chinese, etc., and compare various different traits, they are different enough from one another that unique classification for each is warranted, provided you can refrain from get enraged over deviating from "political correctness" a bit.

I find it kind of amusing, but I had said just the opposite right before - namely, that the variance between groups is much smaller than the variance within grouips. This is an fact that has been shown in many studies of human genetics. Search for "human genetic diversity" in any scholarly search engine and you will find this. To make it simple, here's some examples: (There are *many* more)

http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/9/1679
http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/9/1679
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v66n3/991340/991340.text.html

Some key quotes:

African population samples typically have higher levels of genetic diversity, a complex population substructure, and low levels of linkage disequilibrium (LD) relative to non-African populations. We discuss these differences and their implications for mapping disease genes and for understanding how population and genomic diversity have been important in the evolution, differentiation, and adaptation of humans.

Our results show that when individuals are sampled homogeneously from around the globe, the pattern seen is one of gradients of allele frequencies that extend over the entire world, rather than discrete clusters.

This is regardless of the fact if we are to categorize humans as races or not. Indeed, a source critical of using the diversity argument solely to show that race is inaccurate says exactly this.

In popular articles that play down the genetical differences among human populations, it is often stated that
about 85% of the total genetical variation is due to individual differences within populations and only 15%
to differences between populations or ethnic groups. It has therefore been proposed that the division of Homo
sapiens into these groups is not justified by the genetic data. This conclusion, due to R.C. Lewontin in 1972, is
unwarranted because the argument ignores the fact that most of the information that distinguishes populations
is hidden in the correlation structure of the data and not simply in the variation of the individual factors.
The underlying logic, which was discussed in the early years of the last century, is here discussed using a simple
genetical example.

Take elephants for example (Indian/Asian & African). There are several different species, and subspecies of elephant walking on the planet right now. Savannah elephants, forest elephants, bush elephants, etc... and those are just some in Africa. Go look at them, and then consider how they're classified. Then look and the "races" of human beings, and do the same. Hmm...

I'm pretty sure you know of the saying/stereotypical joke, "They all look the same to me!" This is one of those cases. If you do a careful analysis, you will see that they are much, MUCH more diverse than humans, as are most species of the planet. Besides, your comparison fails - there are more than one elephant species! Elephant is a family, not even a species! The majority of elephants cannot breed, although there are rare chances that there can be mules; there was a case in 1978 where one was born:

Although hybrids between different animal genera are usually impossible, in 1978 at Chester Zoo, an Asian elephant cow gave birth to a hybrid calf sired by an African elephant bull (the old terms are used here as this pre-dates current classifications). The pair had mated several times, but pregnancy was believed to be impossible. "Motty", the resulting hybrid male calf, had an African elephant's cheek, ears (large with pointed lobes) and legs (longer and slimmer), but the toenail numbers, (5 front, 4 hind) and the single trunk finger of an Asian elephant. The wrinkled trunk was like an African elephant. The forehead was sloping with one dome and two smaller domes behind it. The body was African in type, but had an Asian-type centre hump and an African-type rear hump. The calf died of infection 12 days later. It is preserved as a mounted specimen at the British Natural History Museum, London. There are unconfirmed rumours of three other hybrid elephants born in zoos or circuses, all are said to have been deformed and did not survive.

Horses and donkeys can breed. Yet they are classified as species, because there is a bottleneck in populations merging - a mule cannot mate. (though there are, once again, very rare instances in which one can mate, but the baby is sterile or dies early.)

So this isn't a matter of "Hmm...", but instead, a matter of "Whoops. That didn't work." The example you gave only shows evidence on why humans cannot be seperate species. And even subspecies - look at dogs. Despite the huge physical differences between dogs, all dogs are categorized as a subspecies of the gray wolf. Breeds are their analogy of races - yet there are far more physical differences between breeds of dogs than the racial classification of humans!

Science -in the traditional, long-established study- is totally inflexible. Can't go changing things that were decided 200 years ago! And you can't argue that is indeed the case, for many things.

Are you arguing that science is inflexible, and that I cannot argue that this is false, or that science is inflexible, and you can't argue that this is true? The latter makes no sense, and is what your post literally says, so I'm assuming that you mean the former.

Science is incredibly flexible - that's what the scientific method is. Every theory is tentative, must be falsifiable, and must be chanced to account for new evidence that is contradictory to it. Our knowlwdge of the universe today has changed quite a bit in the last 100 years. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are huge change in the scientific paradigm. But more often, theories changes slowly. Evolution as a theory has changed quite a lot since the days of Darwin. Same with genetics and taxonomy. Every field in science is very flexible - you just don't see it as a layman. The problem here is that the burden is on the person who creates or modifies a theory to show how it is scientific, how it is falsifiable, and what evidence supports it. Science is quite a like like natural selection, and you cannot say that natural selection is inflexible.

Anyway, the differences are certainly there. Distinct differences. Thus each group should be classified, scientifically. Not just the "race" side-show topic, which as you can see here, people are so offended by. "It's illegal in my country!" This sheds some light on why the correct scientific classification was not made in the first place. -To avoid raising potentially sensitive issues, plus perhaps in the spirit of an ideal unity, among mankind.

The problem is also that evidence points to how the classical definitions (Which, if I would remind you, were once scientific definitions) is too general and inaccurate as a classification. It's simply not useful. As I said before, sure, populations can be categorized in a way - perhaps we can even call it race. But it will most likely be different from the common definitions of race.

I will agree that the politics should be seperate from science. Politics can only hamper science, as can be seen in issues such as stem cell research and cloning. I feel this way on all scientific issues - but this also means that people who are not in science should simply bug off unless they are willing to inform themselves on it. There is no point to be worried about a problem that does not exist once you understand what the science is about. A good example here would be the common argument against evolution that it violates the Second Law on Thermodynaics - on close expection, you will find out that not only does it not violate the 2nd law, but it is empowered by it. Mass hysteria by the population only leads to politics - therefore, the only people who should care about science, in a the context of "Where are my taxdollars being spent?" should be science, not the uneducated populace.

"Science" is not perfect. It is nothing but a catalog of man's attempt to discover and label his surroundings, from scratch, with a certainly imperfect mind - as he sees fit. Thus, it is not gospel. A truly smart man does not put all his faith science, because to do so would be to put faith in imperfection, and then have the audacity to go around thumping it as gospel, like the religious folk thump their Bibles (literally). Neither, has all the answers. Wisdom is merely taking a step back, and acknowledging that. But, people are not comfortable with unsatisfied variables/unknowns, thus they cling to one or the other... faith or science. Very few actually THINK, which all I ask, dammit.

Although you are arguing that a true man has no faith in science, let me say something. There are people who put faith in science - this is only because they are uninformed as to the nature of science. Science is empirical - you should not have "faith" in an empirical claim, since said claim can be verified or falsified; in science, usually falsified. A scientist's faith is only in the non-empirical parts of science - that is, mathematics as a whole, as well as the scientific method. There is no point in saying "I have faith that cells have cell membranes" when you can cite acceptable authorities in the matter which know more about the subject than you do, and who can perform the experiment themselves. "Clinging" to science is only what the layman does, and is a problem which many people do. But that is the problem with the layman, not with science.

Science never claimed that it was perfect. It is, however, the most acceptable method we have to discovering the way the universe really is. You cannot say the same for faith, as faith by definition cannot be verified or falsified. But just because science isn't perfect, doesn't mean that you cannot believe that science is most likely the way that we will discover the true ways of the universe. You can have faith in the ways of how science works - just not what science says. An appeal to authority is not always a bad thing in critical thinking - otherwise, it would be impossible to do any form of research, scientific or not.

 

[silver 2039]

I support affirmative action for minoroties as long as it benefits me. After years of oppression of our ansectors we deserve benefits. Yeah...

 

[Masquerouge]

I support affirmative action for minoroties as long as it benefits me. After years of oppression of our ansectors we deserve benefits. Yeah...

By the way, Silver, I believe you're Indian, correct? What would an Indian with a black skin check in these boxes, black or Asian?

 

[silver 2039]

By the way, Silver, I believe you're Indian, correct? What would an Indian with a black skin check in these boxes, black or Asian?

No self-respecting India would check black. Indians are rascist against blacks believe it or not. Also black is identified as referring to Africans. So they would check Asian regardless of their skin color.

 

[Bill3000]

By the way, Silver, I believe you're Indian, correct? What would an Indian with a black skin check in these boxes, black or Asian?

Saying "Indian" is a lot like saying "European." India is incredibly diverse in terms of culture and language. But neither - they would classically be caucasian in a biological context if you used the terms of race; at the very least for northern Indians. The Aryans pushing the dravadians down south and all; northern indian languages being Indo-European. But I'm no expert on this - ansheem might be better, but all I know is that it is very culturally diverse.

This only shows why race fails as a term of "common sense." One of my mantras is "common sense, isn't." That is, common sense often isn't either logical or accurate to the ways of the world.

 

[Masquerouge]

Saying "Indian" is a lot like saying "European." India is incredibly diverse in terms of culture and language. But neither - they would classically be caucasian in a biological context if you used the terms of race; at the very least for northern Indians. The Aryans pushing the dravadians down south and all; northern indian languages being Indo-European. But I'm no expert on this - ansheem might be better, but all I know is that it is very culturally diverse.

This only shows why race fails as a term of "common sense." One of my mantras is "common sense, isn't." That is, common sense often isn't either logical or accurate to the ways of the world.

I agree 100%. My feeling is that these checkboxings are poorly designed, mixing skin color, geographical origins, race, and historical events - "African American", for instance, and furthermore are based on outdated conceptions of the human as a species.

What I'm interested in is trying to figure out what's under the "Black" checkbox. It does not refer to simply the color of the skin, since Indians, as Silver pointed out, do not see themselves as "black".

Yet checking the Asian checkbox is equally stupid, since this is bundling in the same category Indians, Thais, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans.

No self-respecting India would check black. Indians are rascist against blacks believe it or not. Also black is identified as referring to Africans. So they would check Asian regardless of their skin color.

Thanks Silver. That's what I guessed - and it proves these checkboxes are indeed poorly designed.

 

[MamboJoel]

This thread looks like a XIXth century dictionary. Tasty.

 

[Bill3000]

To be fair, race isn't completely irrelevant in society. African Americans, while not part of a greater black race, have their own culture as a result of the percieved differences and their previous social standing in society. It is quite easily for a black from latin america to assimilate into the African American culture, despite the huge differences in ancestry. The social construct of race can create different cultures within a nation because of the way people look - but this says nothing about the biological part of race, nor whether race is accurate or not.

But, once again, this makes race as arbitary as ethnicity, and as a result is more of a type of ethnicity in the nations that use it as a form of classification, such as the USA and South Africa. What is the difference between those who speak Afrikaans and who are Afrikaners? Afrikaners are white, while those who speak Afrikaans is not necessarily white - they can be another ethnicity, coloured. (mixed white European descent, Malay, Malagasy, Black, and South Indian) The major difference here is the "race", rather than an actual cultural difference, although an actual cultural difference has occured because of aparthied, which, well, is a result in the belief in race. Of course, there can be other differences (Such as lineage) but ultimately it is a matter of ethnical identity.

My ultimate response? Classical race is stupid: Get rid of it. It's a hamper to a uniform culture within a nation, inaccurate, misleading, and nonrigorous. This doesn't mean that a form of supraethnicity or pseudorace which takes into account whatever little biological differences exist (Probably mostly from population movements) can work.