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Is race real or is it just a human invention?

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Jitro
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08 Aug 2012, 6:30 pm

Is there really a white, black and asian race, or were they just invented by humans?



Sweetleaf
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08 Aug 2012, 6:37 pm

Well it depends on how you mean it....I mean there are some kind of obvious physical differences between all those, but that is due to the various environments different groups of people evolved in. Then again I have heard the term human race used so if there arent different human races they would have to come up with a better word to refer to the differences that exist due to evolution in different environments


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aspie4jc
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08 Aug 2012, 6:38 pm

We are all a part of the HUMAN race, just different skintone shades.


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SanityTheorist
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08 Aug 2012, 6:40 pm

I think human creation...all humans are almost compeltely the same and are more itnellectual than physical.


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thomas81
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08 Aug 2012, 6:41 pm

Races do exist, in much the same way that neurological groups do, the pertinent question should be, why should it matter?



Sweetleaf
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08 Aug 2012, 6:58 pm

aspie4jc wrote:
We are all a part of the HUMAN race, just different skintone shades.


Technically that is not the only physical difference between what are referred to as races.


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Kurgan
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08 Aug 2012, 7:13 pm

aspie4jc wrote:
We are all a part of the HUMAN race, just different skintone shades.


We're all part of the human specie and the human sub-specie, but there are indeed different races.

There's more to it than just skintone. White people for instance have a high need for protein, but in return can get by with very little vitamin D--traits that developed to be able to cope with European winters.



ruveyn
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08 Aug 2012, 7:30 pm

race is a socio-political construct and convention.

Of course there is biological inheritance of particular characteristics, but distinguishing and differentiating members of the human species by skin color or hair texture is just plain bogus. These are differences that do not make much of a difference.

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08 Aug 2012, 8:28 pm

Jitro wrote:
Is there really a white, black and asian race, or were they just invented by humans?


The word race rasa was invented by the spanish in response to Mexican colonial issues.

If you want to play the race game defining races as humans genetic groupings that show more similarity ingroup than outgroup .

Then the "White" race does not exist it is too indistinct at the edges neither does the "Black" race too much diversity within the group. (the genetic difference between the San and the Bantu or either group and the Mbuti are greater than the difference between a Han Chinese and an Frenchman.)

The whole thing is a mess.


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Shau
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08 Aug 2012, 9:41 pm

It is possible to break up humans into genetically and phenotypically distinct groups. For example, a lot of work has been done in tracing the matrilineal legacy of various European groups through analysis of their haplotypes.

Similarly, one can look at purely phenotypic characters such as skull shape, and the presence or absence of epicanthic folds, and readily distinguish several distinct groups.

Care should be given, however: There are many layers upon layers upon layers when it comes to stratifying genetic distinctiveness. Every group has subgroups, that has subgroups, and there will be subgroups that are 100% similar with some genes, and 0% similar with others. Then, all of these groups will blend into each other in a myriad of ways. For example, consider a half-and-half Asian and African.



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08 Aug 2012, 9:55 pm

Shau wrote:
It is possible to break up humans into genetically and phenotypically distinct groups. For example, a lot of work has been done in tracing the matrilineal legacy of various European groups through analysis of their haplotypes.

Similarly, one can look at purely phenotypic characters such as skull shape, and the presence or absence of epicanthic folds, and readily distinguish several distinct groups.

Care should be given, however: There are many layers upon layers upon layers when it comes to stratifying genetic distinctiveness. Every group has subgroups, that has subgroups, and there will be subgroups that are 100% similar with some genes, and 0% similar with others. Then, all of these groups will blend into each other in a myriad of ways. For example, consider a half-and-half Asian and African.


exactly but the groups white, black and to as lesser extent asian will not be the groups you come up with
instead you get haplotype groups like K and H and what not and what percentages of each are in a group.
Nothing like the groups White and Black nationalists believe in emerge.


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Burzum
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08 Aug 2012, 10:13 pm

The "caucasoid, negroid and mongoloid" racial groupings are archaic and biologically meaningless.



Shau
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08 Aug 2012, 10:14 pm

JakobVirgil wrote:
Nothing like the groups White and Black nationalists believe in emerge.


The human palette looks far more like after the painter has finished his painting, and all the colors are splotched into each other......

....rather than like the start of the painting, when you have perfect, distinct little splotches of pure color arranged neatly in a row.

I think this is a good way of putting it.



enrico_dandolo
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08 Aug 2012, 11:47 pm

There is obviously a biological reality, but on top of it is built a social construct, which is much deeper in its implications. A bit like sex and gender, in fact.

One is not born, but rather becomes White/Black/anything else.



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08 Aug 2012, 11:56 pm

I'm not sure what race really means but we're all one species.



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09 Aug 2012, 12:10 am

Jitro wrote:
Is there really a white, black and asian race, or were they just invented by humans?


As someone who has grown up in a society without concepts of race in terms of "White" or "Black", this is entirely foreign to me. It's all just a modern invention.