Is race biological, or important to you?

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In 2007, Dr James Watson, a nobel prize winner for discovering the structure of DNA, and lifelong geneticist, was forced to retire for suggesting that all races aren't really equal. The British government even looked at ways he could be prosecuted for his comments.

Okay I do like to get along with people and work with people regardless of their race, views or background. However, it really disturbs me to see today's powers-that-be doing exactly the same thing as the Vatican did with Galileo.

There are also genetics professors like Richard Lewontin, who is the source of the theory in the mainstream news media that 'race doesn't exist' or it's a 'social construct'. I'm finding the 'race doesn't exist' crowd increasingly hard to believe, and that it's far more likely the government is lying, and simply believe things would be better off if people belived in a 'noble lie' (if there is such a thing).

From observation there almost certainly are biological differences in races derived from evolution, and the human species could probably be subdivided into Caucasian, Oriental and African. (Race was originally a terminology for subspecies, where reproduction was compatible within a species). I won't say there is such a thing as inferiority or superiority, but there certainly does seem to be traits where one race excels - a child watching the olympics will notice that Africans almost always win the athletics and whites win the swimming. The American basketball team is also almost entirely African whereas the ice hockey team is almost entirely white. 150 years after the civil war, and with the advancement of civil rights, and equal opportunity, even going to ridiculous extent with quotas and affirmitive action - you would think these trends wouldn't exist if race was merely a social construct. Clearly it has a biological aspect to it. I don't believe it is 'racist' to point this out, it's merely stating facts. Do people here agree, or can explain otherwise?

Perhaps Watson is right, but I think it's unlikely given the comparatively small genetic differences between races. The powers that be had no right to try destroy him over a hypothesis. It seems that the "leftish" (in the bad sense) policy of egalitarianism and tolerance at any cost simply couldn't accept the possibly that there are racial, religious, or significant cultural values.

From observations, there certainly are some biological racial differences. I imagine there probably are some differences when it comes to athletic abilty, but I've never seen a study done on it (what institute would take the risk?).

In any case, stating facts can never be racist. Whether there are any strong racial differences in intellect, I don't know, but if there was I would freely admit it, just as freely as I admit that things fall when you drop them, or 2 + 2 makes 4. That's not racism, but intellectual integrity.

There is also strong evidence to suggest significant difference in average IQ between races (such as the Bell Curve). I used the sport example because it's less likely to cause offence, and obvious to most people. It's morally wrong for me to go along with a lie because somebody else believes it's the way things should be. Who gets to play God and decide that?

There used to be a bunch of Jewish Athletes Sandy Kofax etc. what happened to them?
my thought is that athletic , musical ability come from poverty. [fixed my grammar ]
As to I.Q. tests they are bunk science Flynn, J. R. (1999) and others.
I should know mine is 200 and I am as dumb as a good damn brick.
it might as well be correlation of horoscopes or phrenology.

data is data what you do with it is based on desire.

Last edited by JakobVirgil on 03 Apr 2011, 7:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, and with poverty or whatever else (including genes) merely being a contributing factor and not an actual cause.

Senility.

This case explains why science is better than religion. Just because that guy discovered the structure of DNA, it doesn't make him an infallible authority that we will buy anything from. His stuff on race was completely unjustified and terrible, terrible science. Besides of bigotry-promoting. Not unlike Einstein being terribly wrong about quantum physics.

It starts at IQ tests being completely useless at actually determining intelligence.

It will also probably pain you to find out, that professional athletes actually require very fast brains and intelligence in order to perform well. If you are a High School jock, you can get away with a fit body that does not get tired, but in the professional level, everyone has a great athletic body, it becomes all about the brain.

Tiger Woods for example, is considered a complete freak case of genius. The guy seems to shut down everything not related to the ball when he is hitting it. It is like extreme focus.

There are no pure "races". The human race is a species and males and females of any so-called race can mate and produce viable and fertile offspring, which is pretty well what happened. The human race consists of lots of "mutts". Race has no biological definition. Two specimens are of the same species if they can interbreed and produce viable and fertile offspring. So there is really only one race -- the human race.

ruveyn

As people who are biologically "unique" I could imagine it is hard for us to judge others based off of how one is born, yet I am not concerned about the outcomes of these studies because I am sure that everyone is first an individual. If there is a single person who breaks a stereotype about performance based on biology, then the possiblility of more outliers is not precluded. Someone is more than an object pushed by the laws of science, so the interaction between a single human being and biological/mental ability is mutual.

i wouldnt go as far as dividing and boxing people based on their dna, but i do believe there is a biological difference between people.
why does it need to carry a negative connotation when someone describes groups as different?

If DNA differences bring 'biological' difference between people, then 'race' itself is not a great way to mark it. The differences in DNA between people of different 'races' is minimal if not inconsistent and blurry.

People consider Asian and Black people "races". Yet Epicanthic fold and more production of melamine are mere traits linked to a small part of the DNA which is not really linked to other traits. They are both actually probably adaptations to sun light.

Darker skin means more resistance to sun light, but that's just about the only biological advantage skin color gives by itself. It becomes about who is better adaptation to certain climates, really.

excactly what i meant when i said i didnt want to divide people into boxes, thank you for clarifying.
sometimes i have great troubles explaining my thoughts in any coherent way.

Seriously what does skin color have to do with anything aside from skin pigmentation anyways...

Race isn't synonymous with skin colour. The question being raised is whether there are other traits, like IQ and physical performance, that vary between races.
I personally doubt there is, but it shouldn't be of the table as a topic of discussion just because liberal thought police dislike the notion.

Galileo was subject to house arrest for the rest of his life, and forced to recant. Which is not quite exactly the same.

...which is not the same thing as saying that there are 'races.'


...which proves that you're not an anthropologist.
Genetically, there is more diversity within the continent of Africa than there is outside of it: in other words, an African bushman and an Hutu from Rawanda have far less in common with each other than a white guy and a black guy in Chicago. All of the non-African peoples descended from a diaspora out of north east Africa, and we haven't had time to genetically drift or evolve that far apart from each other. Except for those WP members from within the continent itself, we are all genetically quite close to NE Africans despite out outward appearances.


...which proves you're not versed in sociology, either.
Nor History.
Ever heard of 'Jim Crow' laws? That was well after the Civil war. Ever gone back to watch how black people were treated on TV shows from the 60's? The 70's? Did you know that 'Uhura' from Star Trek was the first female black character on TV who wasn't a servant or a prostitute? Think about TV today. How many shows can you think of with more than a single token black character appearing regularly? How many shows can you think of with someone who is culturally black, one of the 'good guys,' and appearing regularly?
The attitudes portrayed in popular culture both reflect and shape our views of people of other races, and of ourselves for that matter. Affirmative action cannot prevent racism. If you own and appartment complex and don't like black people, do you think you're going to tell the black couple, 'I'm not going to rent to you because you're black,'? Of course not. You'll say, 'I'm renting to this other {white} couple because I like them better,' and they'd have a hell of a time proving that it had anything to do with race. And they might be stuck driving across town to get to work every day, meaning that they lose money and time that they would have saved otherwise. And other small discirminations - all of them equally likely to be difficult or impossible to prove - will guarantee that they spend more time and money resources just to get by than an equally intelligent, equally qualified white person.

Think of how much your parents have contributed to your life. If you're like most people, they fed you, clothed you, put a roof over your head, and helped to pay for your education. They were able to do so because they had the resources to do so. Now think of what they would have been able to do for you if they had been a newly freed field slave with no education and absolutely no resources: no home, no tools. No skill to earn any of those things except hard, back-breaking work. Do you think they could provide their children with much? Do you think that just a few generations is enough for the average descendant of a field slave to achieve equality? To me, it's amazing that black people have come as far as they have, with that background. It's true that there are very successful black people now, but many of them are the descendants of freemen who had generations more to achieve equality. Others are simply above average in terms of intelligence and determination, just like some successful white people are above average. The point is that, all other things being equal, the person from the wealthy background is going to come out ahead of the person with the impoverished background.

Your first and last statements are contradictory. If there are impure races, then there is obviously more than one race. So which is it -- are there impure races (implying more than one race) or is there only one race? And why would races have to be separate species in order to be a valid biological taxonomy? No one in the physical anthropology literature who embraces the notion of biological races regards them as separate species.

The different "races" diverged only very recently in evolutionary time, and they never completely diverged since interbreeding was still relatively common. Add the somewhat weak nature of selective pressures on humans (through technology and organized society we have diminished the direct effects on natural selection on us) and any biologist will tell you that the different races of humans are all very close to the same thing, if not entirely the same. Certainly the genetic diversity within the human race is not enough to justify classifications of subspecies.