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codarac
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24 Sep 2011, 8:00 pm

Vigilans wrote:
codarac wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
Raptor wrote:
donnie_darko wrote:
Does it make me a racist that I believe that races do have a basis in reality? Don't get me wrong, I believe all humans are inherently equal by the law, but I do think on average, there are differences between races, and this might even include things like physical strength and even certain forms of intelligence.


That would make your observant and honest but politically incorrect.


Provide some scientific backup to that claim, then you can actually say it involves honesty and observance and not "I trust my gut more than I do books"


Genetic tests can match people to their self-designated races with enormous accuracy. Since geographical separation, genetic drift and natural selection have clearly helped make the races look different on the outside, the onus is on the egalitarians to explain how exactly nature has contrived to make the races exactly the same "on the inside".

So go ahead, Vigilans. Show us the science. (I personally would like to see you guide us through the reasoning rather than just name-dropping.)


You're talking about superficial differences that are well known to exist. The implication of donnie_darko and Raptor's statements are that there are inferior or superior traits inherent to certain "races". The onus is on you making the claim to provide evidence, since I am merely engaging in a skeptical inquiry into what amounts to pseudo-scientific rubbish


Laughable gainsaying. Typing in bold doesn't make your words any more correct. Genetic tests show marked genetic differences between the races, and genes influence phenotypic traits. So please explain to us how nature has somehow contrived to make it so that the marked genetic differences between the races only relate to genes influencing "superficial" traits.

Vigilans wrote:
codarac wrote:
Really, one minute liberals are all about celebrating diversity and the next they're trying to enforce uniformity upon nature itself. What a conundrum!


False analogy. I'm not as liberal as you think. Also thank you for making it more blatantly obvious that the pro-racism (or "racial realism" if I take one of the most popular euphemisms) argument is irrevocably tied to backwards conservatives


I'm not particularly interested in the labels you use, but since the idea of a "conservative" round these parts is someone like, say, Bill O'Reilly, I'm rather less bothered about being accused of "racism" than being accused of "conservatism".



codarac
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24 Sep 2011, 8:03 pm

PS - The next time someone on this board argues the case for racial equality as a fact of nature, can we expect to see Vigilans asking them for scientific evidence? After all, he's just a skeptical enquirer.



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24 Sep 2011, 8:13 pm

codarac wrote:
PS - The next time someone on this board argues the case for racial equality as a fact of nature, can we expect to see Vigilans asking them for scientific evidence? After all, he's just a skeptical enquirer.


How about you prove races are unequal? And I mean, provide real scientific evidence, not racist diatribes.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



Vigilans
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24 Sep 2011, 8:36 pm

codarac wrote:
Laughable gainsaying. Typing in bold doesn't make your words any more correct. Genetic tests show marked genetic differences between the races, and genes influence phenotypic traits. So please explain to us how nature has somehow contrived to make it so that the marked genetic differences between the races only relate to genes influencing "superficial" traits.


Hardly. All I requested was evidence, which is a fairly modest thing to ask for. You guys could actually provide me with something tangible. You after all hold these beliefs, and are willing to belittle yourself and I by making this a pointlessly hostile exchange to somehow prove they are valid. I bold things for emphasis, it doesn't mean anything of what you're implying. My position is that there are differences (there are certainly some things that are more common to people of different genetic groups- rosacea amongst north-western Europeans for example) but they do not amount to anything as to what guys like David Duke, or, dare I say it- Adolf Hitler- claim. You look at Human history it does not make the case for any one race being the best. Chance and having the right resources at the right time are what make a civilization reach a point that lead some of it's population to a superiority complex.

codarac wrote:
PS - The next time someone on this board argues the case for racial equality as a fact of nature, can we expect to see Vigilans asking them for scientific evidence? After all, he's just a skeptical enquirer.


What exactly is it that you're even claiming- I get your general thesis, that you consider there to be superior genetic traits that are attributable to the human's "racial" background. That is an old idea and has gotten a lot of support in the past.. We agree there are superficial differences (though perhaps you don't consider them that superficial), but I want to know exactly what the differences you are referring to are. What differences do you consider to be caused by marked genetic traits in particular groups that lead them to be inferior or superior to others? What evidence is there for it?

Raptor wrote:
Differences are differences. I don't think it was the intent of Donnie darko to say that one race is superiority and others inferior but that there are obvious differences between races.
I’m not going on a fool’s errand to find you or anyone else scientific proof to back that up any more than I’m going to find scientific proof that the earth is round…


You would only need a few instruments including your eyes to prove the world is round. But I digress

If you are referring to cultural differences, than that is an obvious conclusion. You find cultural differences between even small units of people. I just object to this idea that it is based upon inferior or superior genetic traits. If that's not what you are thinking than I apologize for mistaking your position

Raptor wrote:
Aw come on now, you can do better than that. It needs more emotion like "dangerously stupid", "vulgarly hateful", "right wing jackass", "bully", etc. And just as a bonus throw in "homophobic".


No, I don't actually think bad of you, despite our occasional disagreements


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simon_says
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24 Sep 2011, 8:46 pm

The sad truth about racists is that their days are numbered. Who will complain about natural variation when their neighbor's kid is genetically engineered. The anger will be redirected.

But I think it's inevitable that they will find some advantages and differences between populations. They've already found a handful and the list will grow.



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24 Sep 2011, 8:52 pm

simon_says wrote:
The sad truth about racists is that their days are numbered. Who will complain about natural variation when their neighbor's kid is genetically engineered. The anger will be redirected.

But I think it's inevitable that they will find some advantages and differences between populations. They've already found a handful and the list will grow.


That's a good point. I guess the anger could be redirected at non-engineered people. Not unlike in that film Gattaca

Which advantages are you referring to?


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Raptor
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24 Sep 2011, 8:56 pm

Vigilans wrote:
codarac wrote:
Laughable gainsaying. Typing in bold doesn't make your words any more correct. Genetic tests show marked genetic differences between the races, and genes influence phenotypic traits. So please explain to us how nature has somehow contrived to make it so that the marked genetic differences between the races only relate to genes influencing "superficial" traits.


Hardly. All I requested was evidence, which is a fairly modest thing to ask for. You guys could actually provide me with something tangible. You after all hold these beliefs, and are willing to belittle yourself and I by making this a pointlessly hostile exchange to somehow prove they are valid. I bold things for emphasis, it doesn't mean anything of what you're implying. My position is that there are differences (there are certainly some things that are more common to people of different genetic groups- rosacea amongst north-western Europeans for example) but they do not amount to anything as to what guys like David Duke, or, dare I say it- Adolf Hitler- claim. You look at Human history it does not make the case for any one race being the best. Chance and having the right resources at the right time are what make a civilization reach a point that lead some of it's population to a superiority complex.

codarac wrote:
PS - The next time someone on this board argues the case for racial equality as a fact of nature, can we expect to see Vigilans asking them for scientific evidence? After all, he's just a skeptical enquirer.


What exactly is it that you're even claiming- I get your general thesis, that you consider there to be superior genetic traits that are attributable to the human's "racial" background. That is an old idea and has gotten a lot of support in the past.. We agree there are superficial differences (though perhaps you don't consider them that superficial), but I want to know exactly what the differences you are referring to are. What differences do you consider to be caused by marked genetic traits in particular groups that lead them to be inferior or superior to others? What evidence is there for it?

Raptor wrote:
Differences are differences. I don't think it was the intent of Donnie darko to say that one race is superiority and others inferior but that there are obvious differences between races.
I’m not going on a fool’s errand to find you or anyone else scientific proof to back that up any more than I’m going to find scientific proof that the earth is round…


You would only need a few instruments including your eyes to prove the world is round. But I digress

If you are referring to cultural differences, than that is an obvious conclusion. You find cultural differences between even small units of people. I just object to this idea that it is based upon inferior or superior genetic traits. If that's not what you are thinking than I apologize for mistaking your position

Raptor wrote:
Aw come on now, you can do better than that. It needs more emotion like "dangerously stupid", "vulgarly hateful", "right wing jackass", "bully", etc. And just as a bonus throw in "homophobic".


No, I don't actually think bad of you, despite our occasional disagreements



What a letdown :(



ruveyn
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24 Sep 2011, 9:04 pm

simon_says wrote:
The sad truth about racists is that their days are numbered. Who will complain about natural variation when their neighbor's kid is genetically engineered. The anger will be redirected.



The desirability of "genetic engineering" is based on the questionable assumption that we are totally the result of our genetic makeup. Not so. Our individual histories and experiences have just as much to do with what we our as our genomes.

ruveyn



simon_says
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24 Sep 2011, 9:46 pm

Quote:
The desirability of "genetic engineering" is based on the questionable assumption that we are totally the result of our genetic makeup. Not so. Our individual histories and experiences have just as much to do with what we our as our genomes.


No one said totally. But it's a significant factor. If evolution can grab it and change it, so can we. A motivated chimp won't create Microsoft.

Quote:
Which advantages are you referring to?


Beyond the distribution of diseases there is something about a region of italy where a mutation has increased resistance to heart disease. There has been something about an adaption in Tibetans that leads them to process oxygen better. There is the discovery that some islanders in SE asia can have as much as 8-10% of their DNA contributed from non-homo sapiens. Those other human groups were isolated from us for many hundreds of thousands of years. Longer than the isolation that resulted in grizzly bears and polar bears. Who can say what they might find in there.

And then there are strange things like the sprinting ability of West Africans that suggest some genetic advantage. Something that gives them a 10th of a second edge is possible.

I just can't imagine that all populations are exactly equal in the distribution of all traits. It makes no sense to me.



ruveyn
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24 Sep 2011, 9:55 pm

simon_says wrote:

I just can't imagine that all populations are exactly equal in the distribution of all traits. It makes no sense to me.


They aren't. But how much of a difference, do the differences make? People are as much a product of their choices and the accidents that befall them as they are of their genetic makeup. How much bettier is the west African who does not practice rigorously?

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CrinklyCrustacean
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25 Sep 2011, 1:07 am

What people don't realise is that you can become racist through bad personal experiences, not just through written propaganda and what others say.



puddingmouse
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25 Sep 2011, 7:24 am

Kraichgauer wrote:

Someday, those people from Pakistan will be regarded as English, they will regard themselves as English, and they will disappear into the English gene pool. That has always been the way of things throughout history.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


The only likely way that would happen is if Britain became a majority Muslim country. The other way it could happen is if Islam underwent the same process as Christianity did, which started with the Reformation, and its followers stop believing in it in the same way they do now. Either Britain would have to radically change, or Islam would - I bet on Britain changing before Islam (but the sheer horror that most secular British people have towards Islam makes this really unlikely).

Though seriously, I think both are unlikely to happen. Pakistanis are just going to continue to live in this country the way they have for 50 years - in the same areas as poor whites, enjoying the mutual racism and distrust on both sides. Maybe those said poor whites will get used to them in a few generations (I hope so) and I think the distrust will die down - but Pakistanis are not going to consider themselves English. I asked someone at work what her nationality was (she was Pakistani) and she said 'Islam'. The fact that they tend to marry back home means that we have an ever-fresh supply of first generation immigrants coming in on marriage visas. Maybe if more UK born Desis married UK born Desis (this is starting to happen more and more now) it would help with the community to be seen as part of British life - but it's always going to be separate as long as we live in a secular/culturally Christian country.

I don't think it would be a bad thing if a group is racially and culturally separate, if they accept and are accepted by the dominant group. That's the idea behind multiculturalism, which I don't think is working yet with this particular group. However, I'm not quite as doomy about it as many rightwingers because I've lived in a multi-ethnic area all my life and there is more tolerance in these places than people think.

The melting-pot idea doesn't work as well in Europe with non-European immigrants. It works in America, but for various reasons it wouldn't be practical in a small European country. Multiculturalism does actually work, usually.


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tall-p
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31 Dec 2014, 8:48 pm

simon_says wrote:
And then there are strange things like the sprinting ability of West Africans that suggest some genetic advantage. Something that gives them a 10th of a second edge is possible.
Maybe you mean Jamaican sprinters like world record holder Usain Bolt?

Is It In The Knees?
Published: Monday | December 29, 2014
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2014 ... orts1.html
Researchers try to discover how Jamaican sprinters outrun the world

Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is the fastest person in the world. (photo at link)

He is the very first Olympic athlete to hold 100 metres and 200 metres world records, having accomplished the former in just under 10 seconds in 2009. He can also travel for 30 miles per hour on foot and in some small towns, that is already the driving norm.

Scientists have long wondered about Bolt's extraordinary speeds.

In their search for Usain's sprint secrets, researchers stumbled upon Bolt's country Jamaica, home to some of the world's most elite sprinters. Researchers have begun to wonder how Jamaica, a country with less people than New York City, gave birth to some of the best runners history has ever known.

physiology

Rutgers University decided to investigate the Usain Bolt phenomenon, and their first step to uncover the secrets of Jamaica's greatest runners is to go through the physiology.

Scientists hypothesised that the alignment of the knees may have had something to do with how Jamaican runners perform on the track and they began to test their ideas by examining the knees of 74 elite Jamaican sprinters, including well-known names such as Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Nesta Carter.

They then compared them to a control of 116 Jamaicans who have no experience with the sport. After factoring in sex, age and other external variables in their comparisons, they have concluded that the knees of those who belonged to the athlete group were more symmetrical than those from the control group.

According to Futurity, although the scientists have established a clear relationship between knee symmetry and running speed, no causative relation between the two variables has been concluded.

Robert Trivers, a scientist from Rutgers, says although there is an observable relationship, the nature of the link between symmetry and speed is yet to be established.

Trivers said: "We don't know for sure whether the sprinters are great sprinters because their knees are symmetrical, or whether their knees are symmetrical because of all the time they spend practicing."

In the future, the researchers aim to study more complex details about the runners' anatomies, including minute differences between the left and the right leg. He also aims to do genetic research to discover how Jamaican runners outrun sprinters from other countries.

The study is published in the online journal PLOS one.


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white_as_snow
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31 Dec 2014, 8:55 pm

True what OP says.

Here in Sweden for exemple, the leader for the biggest fascist political party (Sverigedemokraterna) is smart as hell. He have brainwashed 12,9 % to vote on his political party. His companions are also smart.