Not really.
If you start learning about world genetics you find that we are far more mixed then most people could believe. Genes from around the world are found around the world. We travel, we trade and we have lots of sex. Whenever you find any group that has contact with any other group there is, to a greater or lesser degree, an exchange of genes. And then that group trades with a third group and it goes on and on.
If you can tell at a glance, or looking at a piece of hair or earwax under a microscope, which continent someone’s ancestors are from,
Well, you see that is just the problem. You can't.
Are there genetic traits? Of course. Are they stronger then culture? So far unproven to say the least.
This flies in the face of those who think we can "breed" better people rather then training better people.
They think that if they can just find the right mix of genes the hard consistent work of creating and maintaining a culture that encourages people to be better will be over.
To quote you "Sticking your fingers in your years and screaming “LALA-I-CANT-HEAR-YOU” is not a good substitute for rationally discussing the risks and benefits of quantifying cultural differences between persons and groups and addressing the consequences of those differences - you can’t just wish away differences."
“If you start learning about world genetics you find that we are far more mixed then most people could believe. Genes from around the world are found around the world. We travel, we trade and we have lots of sex.”
Heredity does not function that way, and it reflects poorly on your understanding of basic biology when you claim that it does, to say nothing of your knowledge of history. Place a drop of milk into a gallon of ink, and see what happens. That is what happens when someone from the Bell-Beaker culture washes up on the coast of sub-Saharan Africa.
Your potential misuse of the word “genes” tells me that you may also misunderstand genetics. Do you know the difference between a gene and an allele? Between nuclear DNA and the mtDNA or Y-chromosomal DNA used as useful yardsticks in population genetics?
Limited trading contacts and limited geneflow or introgression events are not sufficient on their own to significantly change the genotype of the whole population, whether we are talking fruit flies or humans - after each generation any small introduction of new genetic material would be halved, halved again the next generation, and so on. The dominant communal genotype would remain dominant, period. Over centuries beneficial alleles derived from an introgression event which happen to convey a reproductive advantage may begin to proliferate, but that in no way implies genetic replacement of the dominant genotype or significant admixture. Quite the contrary, most alleles introduced by limited introgression events are quickly lost even if they are beneficial and convey a significant reproductive advantage, simple probability governs the equation. There’s a reason we don’t look like Neanderthals and Denisovans.
It requires mass displacement of a population and, usually, total military conquest in order to significantly shift the overall percentages of measurable traits or allele frequency in a given human population, and historically those types of events have tended to replace native populations on the whole rather than create a significantly admixed population; on average merely amounting to picking up a few sex chromosomes here and there from the conquered to let future geneticists know that some tribe was subsumed. Even prolonged border-sharing isn’t usually sufficient to significantly alter the dominant features of a community, especially when administrative, cultural, economic, geographic or linguistic barriers discourage complete freeflow of genetic material. Picking up a little mtDNA from a slave or two isn’t enough to shift a group’s clustering on a haplotype map.
There are VERY few significantly admixed populations in the world today, a few notable examples being African-Americans and some (but certainly nowhere near all) Latin American populations. Fascinatingly enough some Indian ethnic groups have maintained a high degree of differentiation despite numerous conquests and centuries of cohabitation, cultural barriers can be surprisingly effective at stopping gene flow.
The vast physical differences you see when looking at people from different areas of the world is a consequence of the biological differences between populations of human beings that have been breeding in significant isolation from one another. You can even tell many of the larger clusters of human populations apart based on something as simple as visually examining a hair or a bit of ear wax.
“Well, you see that is just the problem. You can’t.” Well that’s the problem, you can. You are quite wrong. If your assumption were correct, then there are a whole lot of forensic scientists out there helping to convict people with false science. Significant physical differences exist between the main ancestral groups of human beings, and even when dealing with a mixed community of many different ancestral populations cohabiting (the American continent would be a good example) we can still identify significantly different traits existing between different communities living in the same small place.
You don’t get epicanthic folds, powdery ear wax and shovel teeth by practicing Confucianism; they are hereditary traits, not cultural ones.
Here’s the crux of the disagreement. You would like to ignore every possible cause of human difference other than culture. I on the other hand admit that human beings are a product of both nature AND nurture, and further I believe that it’s important to understand which force is responsible for what effect, rather than simply assuming that half or more of the equation doesn’t exist.
You appear to have some emotional and political motivations for your viewpoint, and that is understandable most people do. For example, your introduction of the concept of “breeding” better human beings, when I mentioned no such thing and when I took pains to point out that understanding human biology does NOT by definition lead to eugenics. You simply assume that anyone who claims nature has a role must, by definition, be a eugenicist advocating nature above all other causes.
Compare and contrast my comments, I took pains to point out an example in modern medicine where we identified a behavioral problem that was highly heritable, schizophrenia, and I took great pains to point out that the response was NOT “Breed better humans!”, the response was to use cultural and scientific achievements to ameliorate the effects of biological shortcomings. Enhanced medical screening, therapy and medication targeted specifically at highly risk-prone individuals and families - not eugenics.
This is key, we must not ignore biology. Nature and nurture together can build a better society, and if we understand where nature falls a little short we can use a bit of nurture (or a handful of nutritional supplements or anti-psychotics) to smooth out the difference. You CANNOT DO THAT if you refuse to admit that nature has a significant influence. You end up creating more human suffering and compounding humanity’s failures if you refuse to accurately identify the source of a problem.
To reiterate my final point from the last post - ignoring biological differences, refusing to discuss them, does not serve any useful purpose; it compounds human suffering and retards real progress. Further, ignoring biological differences DELAYS or PREVENTS the formation and adoption of rational, reasonable, moral principles to guide medical intervention. We CAN address biological differences between individuals and populations in a moral and rational manner without resorting to eugenics and extermination camps, as I pointed out with the example of schizophrenia, and it is very important that we adopt guiding frameworks that encourage this rational and moral approach before medical technology advances beyond the point where we can shape its widespread use and acceptance.
By delaying a moral discussion about the biological forces underlying human behavior, and how those forces may differ between populations, you are paradoxically encouraging a resurgence of eugenicist thought. Better to address uncomfortable truths now before they get too loud for the majority to ignore, and better yet to establish a moral framework for medical intervention BEFORE genetic screening and manipulation become common enough and cheap enough for individual customers and medicos to develop their own beliefs about how such performance enhancing technology should be used.