Ortho Stice wrote:Mencius wrote:
Those groups of people that grew up and mated together generation after generation eventually had distinct clusters of genes that geneticists can easily identify as being of a particular group, which in broad terms we call race.
Pretty much everything you say here is wrong. Race isn't based on any biological factors -- it's socially determined. I think you're getting race confused with ethnicity, although that is socially derived, as well. Ethnicity is closer to your misconception of race, in that it's based on a perceived common ancestry.
Mencius wrote:So, while there is no firm box around which we can put the label "race", there are groups of people that are more genetically related to each other than they are to other groups of people that lived half way around the earth.
Sure, there may be people genetically related to each other, but that doesn't signify a race. People of the same race in America can come from very different parts of the word, with their ancestors growing up on disparate continents. Black people aren't just African-Americans. There are people from South America, the Caribbean Islands and even Europe, that are labeled black, as well.
I'm not sure what part of this is so confusing to you. Look in any dictionary you can find and generally speaking, the first definition will say something like "1. A group of persons related by common descent or heredity." It is about relatedness, and it is scalable. You are closer related to your family, and then your cousins, and then to others that grew up in the same town for generation after generation. Because travel was far, far more limited over thousands of years, the gene pool was a lot smaller, hence, much greater relatedness, even to the point where distinctions became apparent. It's basically verbal shorthand to group together related people. And the degree of relatedness is far greater if their ancestors grew up in close proximity to one another. How is this not obvious?
As to blacks, whites, Asians, etc living in sundry locations, thanks for pointing out the obvious. The group of people that they belong to, as far as racial identification goes, has to do with their genes and where there ancestors were from, not where they are presently living. There is a great deal more mixing these days, especially so since the advent of the automobile and airplane, and it could happen that distinct peoples will cease to be. It has happened many times before.
In essence, when we speak of race, it is a sort of verbal shorthand for identifying a group. Sometimes people are grouped together in continental size conglomerations, like calling people from Asia Mongoloid, and people from Europe Caucasoid, and people from Africa Negroid, but it can be, and sometimes is broken down much more finely. It's about genetic relatedness. Therefore, Italians are more genetically related to one another than they are to the English, but are closer genetically to the English than they are to Asians. And it all had to do with thousands of years of closer proximity. That's it. No value judgements. It ain't that complicated.
Ortho Stice wrote:Mencius wrote:
This is pie in the sky stuff, but I wish they'd just get this whole tiresome business over with and administer worldwide IQ tests and get out of the realm of the theoretical. Truly know if there are group level differences in the area you're questioning.
Yeah let's just throw IQ tests to people around the world, even though the person's environment plays a large role in their score. Poor people, which are predominantly comprised of certain races in America, would score lower and be thought of as a mentally inferior race. But this wouldn't be a problem since you've already insinuated some races are superior to others. Great job, man, you're on the right track to the next eugenics movement.
As I explained in a previous post, and you conveniently chose to ignore in your cut and paste frenzy:
I don't particularly care about results of cog tests other than to get rid of the pernicious white racism/prejudice narrative which does nothing but sow racial dissent. I'm just against scapegoating one group for another's success or failure. It's paternalistic, ...
Ortho Stice wrote:Mencius wrote:^^^ Like I said, I'll go with Occam's Razor. You take his butterknife.
Haha very elaborate reply, I'll take that as an admittance you're wrong.
Well, sometimes a short reply says it all. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, here it is:
William of Occam (or Ockham) (1284-1347) was an English philosopher and theologian. His work on knowledge, logic and scientific inquiry played a major role in the transition from medieval to modern thought. He based scientific knowledge on experience and self-evident truths, and on logical propositions resulting from those two sources. In his writings, Occam stressed the Aristotelian principle that entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. This principle became known as Occam's (or Ockham's) Razor or the law of parsimony. A problem should be stated in its basic and simplest terms. In science, the simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected.
This rule is interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known.
A real life example of Occam's Razor in practice goes as follows:
Crop circles began to be reported in the 1970s. Two interpretations were made of the circles of matted grass. One was that flying saucers made the imprints. The other was that someone (human) had used some sort of instruments to push down the grass. Occam's Razor would say that given the lack of evidence for flying saucers and the complexity involved in getting UFOs from distant galaxies to arrive on earth (unseen and traveling faster than the speed of light I suppose) the second interpretation is simplest. The second explanation could be wrong, but until further facts present themself it remains the preferable theory. As it turns out, Occam's Razor was right as two people admitted to making the original crop figures in the 1990s (and the rest have apparently been created by copy-cats). Despite this fact, some people still ignore Occam's Razor and instead continue to believe that crop circles are being created by flying saucers.
The simplest model is more likely to be correct--especially when we are working with unusual phenomenon.
No, the simplest explanation is not always correct, but it should be looked at first, because it is more likely to be correct than the convoluted one. When talking subjects that are not considered taboo, you'd look at the known facts, if there seemed a clear pattern, you'd draw assumptions based on the known, observable and reliably repeatable facts. For instance, if people of Sub-Saharan West African descent (now stay with me here, even if they presently live in and perhaps were born in Jamaica, but their gene pool is West African) kept winning sprinting events over and over and over again at the highest level, at some point, most rational people will determine that people of West African descent are faster than other human subpopulations. I personally could give a rat's patoot about how the relative IQ rankings go (and a pattern emerges) of various human subpopulations other than to dispel the White racism/privilege narrative, which, as noted, does nothing but foment more resentment born of historical grievances and perpetuates them to the here and now by placing responsibility for their success or lack thereof on another group. It's a theory I reject. If it were not of such a touchy nature, most people would merely apply the Occam's Razor explanation, unless some clear truth emerged to falsify it. Thus far, there is a theory, and that's all. I don't find it compelling in the least, and I think it's fundamentally wrong to scapegoat one group for anothers relative success or failure. That's it. No ill feelings against any other groups.
All of which, was easier stated with just, I'll go with Occam's Razor, you take his butterknife.
This is boring. I don't agree with the white racism/privilege narrative. Others do. I'll leave you to your accustomed echo chamber now.
