Mixed races

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Spanish and Portuguese are Caucasian. So are the Ainu in Japan and most of the peoples of India.
I think you are saying you don't care much for people descended from northern Europe. A lot of people feel that way. Just because we rule the world..... Oopsy. Time to put out some fires. Hey, I've got a daughter who feels just like you do. She says she could never date or marry a white boy, meaning someone of Scot and English descent like me. My black son did marry a white girl. And they just had the cuuuuuutest baby!! !! !

Then why do they use measurements on the medical examiner level to determine race of the deceased in the cases where the body is otherwise unidentifiable? This is done on a daily basis, hundreds if not thousands of times a day. Are you saying they are wrong? Case in point -- there is a nice bounty in Vietnam right now on finding bodies of American servicemen lost in action during the war. However, the craftier/less honest folks have sometimes dug up a Vietnamese skeleton and tried to pass it off as a lost soldier. There are simple measurements they do, measuring the palate, to determine race/ethnicity and catch fraud in these cases. Are you saying this is inaccurate or false? If so, perhaps you should publish your opinion in a journal somewhere, as it is apparently working quite well for professionals in that field.



I'm no scientist either, but hormones clearly have a major impact on growth rates and other factors that would impact skeletal development and the development of the body as a whole.


growth hormones are one thing. why would that imply differences in testosterone levels, as you were suggesting? why would it imply differences in levels of aggression (as you thought might be possible?) it's not making sense to me.


Yes, and we label people according to what general region their ancestors came from (in the case where their ancestors can be shown to have been in a certain area for multiple generations). We also do this with animals that have minor physical differences (different coloring, smaller or bigger stature) but retain most or all of the same DNA -- yet for all non-human animals, we do split them into subspecies where relevant.

Also -- do we not make claims that certain dog breeds are physically or tempermentally more dangerous than others? (e.g. pitbulls) Are they not part of the same species as well? So what I see here is a double standard due to PC-ness. I understand why, but at the same time I can see that it ultimately limits scientific inquiry, and at the end of the day, limits the amount of knowledge we are really willing to share or publish regarding genetics. There's a big elephant in the room that no one wants to admit they see -- the Emperor has no clothes, but almost nobody says anything.

i don't know what to say about the dog breed analogy. humans are not separated into "breeds." i have to believe that there's a reason for it. even during the most racist periods of our country (when one individual, for instance, was trying to "prove" that whites were more intelligent than blacks by stuffing skulls full of clay and over-packing the skulls of caucasians) has anyone suggested that humans were separated into breeds. i have to believe there's a reason for this.




So back to the original topic -- I'm a mix of northern European ancestry, both UK isles and Eastern Europe. It seems to be a decent combo, and when I have kids with my wife, who is part a lot of things (hispanic, African, European), the results should be interesting. So just in case anyone thinks I have a racist agenda above, I don't, but I really hate to see political correctness, in any century, stymie scientific enquiry.

Then why do they use measurements on the medical examiner level to determine race of the deceased in the cases where the body is otherwise unidentifiable? This is done on a daily basis, hundreds if not thousands of times a day. Are you saying they are wrong? Case in point -- there is a nice bounty in Vietnam right now on finding bodies of American servicemen lost in action during the war. However, the craftier/less honest folks have sometimes dug up a Vietnamese skeleton and tried to pass it off as a lost soldier. There are simple measurements they do, measuring the palate, to determine race/ethnicity and catch fraud in these cases. Are you saying this is inaccurate or false? If so, perhaps you should publish your opinion in a journal somewhere, as it is apparently working quite well for professionals in that field.

Actually, either you or the media are misinterpreting what the forensics folks actually do, or the forensics folks are misrepresenting (i.e. overreaching) with their conclusions. They can say that with a given measurement, there is a certain percentage probability that the deceased is of a certain race, but they cannot draw the conclusion with 100% absolute certainty. I don't have to publish my opinion anywhere, it is known statistics and this is exactly what statistics professors teach.

if we can identify according to this skeletal/palate shape, then there is a variation in the way growth hormones are utilized.

if there's a variation in the way growth hormones are utilized, couldn't there be differences in testosterone levels.

if there are differences in testosterone levels, aren't there varying levels of aggression....

this is slippery-sloping. thus, it doesn't quite make sense to me.

I'm interested in a black girl. She's actually from Africa, ethiopia to be exact. Her skin is the color of a hershey's chocolate bar, not the darkest shades where they almost look competely black. She's rather short. I did wonder what it would be like if we did by some slim chance get married and have kids. I would probably love their super dark eyes. They would also get my height. I knew this one girl who was part asian and part white. She was extremely beatutiful.

Ethiopean and Sudanese are very good looking people for sure, was struck by that visiting Toronto once, here in the U.S. - particularly the midwest - you see very little of that.

Well, but it's not all genetics, however. Cultural and behavioral practices, as well as environmental circumstances can also affect physical traits.

On a strictly scientific standpoint, each of the three conjectural statements you made above could be possible, but are not necessarily true. Some comprehensive, rigorous statistics would be needed to demonstrate with a very high degree of probability (95% is the lowest common standard in science) that each of the things you mentioned exist.

But the true slippery slope that you might be kinda aware of, and which billsmithglendale has slipped down, is that even if statistics show with high probability of differences between groups of people, one cannot then automatically conclude that a specific individual belonging to one of those groups must be a certain way. For example, genetics has demonstrated that certain populations of Native Americans as a whole metabolize ethanol slightly differently from what other populations of people do. However, this doesn't mean that all members of that population metabolize ethanol differently. It's this extrapolation of a "group" to an "individual" which is the slippery slope, and statisticians frequently warn about this kind of thing. Extrapolation from an individual to a group is also slippery for similar reasons.

I hope this make sense! I didn't want to get too technical about the statistics.

It's a great explanation -- but by your same argument above, when we speak of races, we're not speaking of individuals, we're speaking on the group (and thus statistical level), correct? So I feel like this argument has gone full circle.

And am I really going down a slippery slope (which is a somewhat denigrating way to frame my argument), or am I using deductive reasoning?

well---i'm not really sure that point D, for example, follows from point A. so in my opinion, it's a possible slippery slope. well--for instance: this would be my example of deductive reasoning:

1) you can tell (within a very high probability) that X skeleton belongs to a person of X ethnicity.

2) therefore X skeleton belongs to a person of X ethnicity.

3) since growth hormones determine the size and shape of this skeletal bone, we can conclude that growth hormones are processed differently across ethnicities.

4) the way growth hormones are processed is related to the way other hormones are processed (ex. testosterone.)

5) therefore it's possible that testosterone levels differ from one ethnicity to another.


but it's not necessarily true, for example, that growth hormones affect testosterone levels. so i think characteristics would need to be assessed individually: it's difficult to draw a conclusion about one given a vague probability about another.

this is how i see it, anyway.

does it make sense?