Race only skin deep - S.J. STUDENTS DISCOVER GENETIC LINK

Mercury News ^ | Mon, Feb. 09, 2004 | Katherine Corcoran

[CobaltBlue]

More than half of the class at San Jose's Piedmont Hills High School, students from numerous racial and ethnic backgrounds, are linked in their DNA to the same ancestor, born more than 100,000 years ago in central China or Taiwan.

[Dan Evans]

The "reparations" cases to date have made zero progress, but don't hinge on anything but slavery, which cannot be denied, and doesn't need alternative theorizing about race.

Yes, the cases are being dismissed but corporations are still under legal attack. They still have to pay lawyers to defend the suits and the defense needs to present an alternative theory to explain why blacks are not as prosperous as whites. They need to do this because the reparations movement claims that even blacks who were not slaves are suffering from the legacy of the slave trade. Books are being written, heads are talking and the discussion continues.

Personally, I think the concept of group IQs is meaningless. On the average, blacks don't play golf, but tell that to Tiger Woods. On the average, blacks don't vote Republican, but tell that to Walter Williams, Armstrong Williams, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. On the average, Asians have higher IQs than whites.

When the PC police come knocking on the door and inquire as to why you don't have the proper percentage of blacks employed as electronic engineers we need to know about group IQs, group averages and group tendencies. How else are we to explain it?

Should we whites give up and start cleaning toilets for Asians? Is that our pre-ordained fate?

The purpose of the discussion is not to convince people that there is a pre-ordained place in life, it simply means that the socioeconomic status of a group does not necessarily mirror that group's share of the population.

On the average, whites commit more crimes than Asians and use more drugs. Does that make you a criminal drug-user?

No, but knowing that explains why there are fewer Asians on death row and fewer Asians in prison. It means whites shouldn't complain that the justice system is biased in favor of Asians.

[ffusco]

Factors like intelligence, manners, and initiative are cultural, not genetic. Western culture values these things, so they are encouraged.

[Modernman]

Factors like intelligence, manners, and initiative are cultural, not genetic. Western culture values these things, so they are encouraged.

Exactly.

[ffusco]

--I would not be surprised to learn that some groups of people would be genetically incapable of coping with the mental tasks of living and working and learning in a technological society.

Sounds like Mein Kampf to me.

[sandydipper]

Has to have something to do with Berkley.

[ffusco]

On the average, Asians have higher IQs than whites.

You forgot to mention that this refers to Asians that take IQ tests. Isn't it more likely that this is because the Asians that came here were already educated and upwardly mobile.

This is cultural, not genetic

[ffusco]

Excellent post.

A better way to distinguish people, IMHO, is not on skin color but the culture that that individual represents.

[Nebullis]

That's because, as has been pointed out on this thread, there doesn't seem to be any objective way to define race.

There are two very easy ones: skin color and recent ancestral origins. (If we go back far enough, we are all related.) Most people have no difficulty grouping individuals into races based on physical characteristics alone. As there is considerable mixing between the races today, the lines separating those groups become less distinct, but with modern day genetic techniques, it is possible to find a set of distinct genetic markers. And eventhough the PC left or conservatives with positive intent are trying to erase the distinction between races by calling them arbitrary or non-existent, there is an opposite trend in medical research that calls for genetically taylored treatment for different racial groups. The different groups not only carry different genetic susceptibility for certain pathology, they also carry different genetic predispositions for their response to treatment. And, indeed, there are sets of genetic markers that can identify racial groups or ethnic/geographic ancestry. And these genetic markers do correlate with skin color and overt physical features.

Skin color and/or geographic ancestry are often used to socially or culturally separate the races. This is most often done to no good end. Skin color does not correlate with intelligence or behavior the way that a polymorphism in a liver enzyme correlates with sensitivity to pharmaceuticals. And even to the extent that it might correlate, it does so as an emergent property of the whole genetic makeup of an individual (i.e. it does not depend on one or two genes) and is expressed with great variation between individuals. And this an important point: even if there is an average difference between two racial groups, the overlap of the whole group is much greater that any difference. This means that the use of physical characteristics such as skin color as an indicator of, say, the intelligence of that individual is not valid. For example, if a green race scored an average 10% lower on an intelligence metric than a purple race, a green with the median score would still be more intelligent than 40% of the purples.

There are differences between races and they have have a testable genetic basis. The boundaries between the races are blurring as the world becomes smaller and mixing occurs. My guess is that in colonial days the differences were much starker than today. Social stratification based on race is wrong in my opinion, but does not imply anything about whether or not there are races. The phenomenon of race exists, but the concept of race as a social structure is not useful.

[ffusco]

Third, don't words such as "civilization", and phrases such as "rise of civilization," convey the false impression that civilization is good.


Civilization ( living in cities ) is the basis of our culture. By cities I mean connected population centers, not just apartment dwellers.

[Nebullis]

You forgot to mention that this refers to Asians that take IQ tests. Isn't it more likely that this is because the Asians that came here were already educated and upwardly mobile. This is cultural, not genetic

One assumes that the authors knew how to do research, took a representative sample and factored in cultural/educational differences. :)

At the same time, intelligence is most certainly genetic. A full potential of genetic capability can be realized with a proper education and culture, but a person who is not born smart will not become so in the right culture or education. Genetics determine basic intelligence.

[ffusco]

In any group there will be a bell curve of distribution reagrding any trait you can imagine. A persons individual genes will obviously determine his or her potential for certain traits.

[puroresu]

Your post is an excellent example of why people should be judged as individuals.

But using your green and purple example, what should we do if someone insists that there cannot possibly be any average IQ difference between greens and purples, asserting that intelligence is cultural and not genetic. They then demand that "X" number of purples be denied college admission, employment, or whatever, even though they qualified, in order that greens be represented by quota in all those areas? Do we simply capitulate to the demand, or do we say that since greens on average scored 10% lower than purples, greens will be represented in some areas at less than their population percentages?

In other words, do we judge people as individuals or do we operate on the group assumption that any difference between races is cultural and any difference in performance must be due to a bad dose of negative culture, so to compensate we give each race a quota in each area of human endeavor?

[Nebullis]

In other words, do we judge people as individuals or do we operate on the group assumption that any difference between races is cultural and any difference in performance must be due to a bad dose of negative culture, so to compensate we give each race a quota in each area of human endeavor?

You went exactly to where my thoughts were at. We, as conservatives, see human beings as individuals with equal rights under the law. Socially, it's very important to treat every individual on their own merits and not as a predetermined indentity with a group. The identity politics of the left and its use for racial quotas or racial guilt and victimhood is no different than the "racism" it purports to correct.

[CobaltBlue]

I have to say that most of the discussion on this thread has been so depressing that I am sorry I ever brought it up.

However, your point about tailoring medical treatment to racial groups piqued my attention.

It seems to me that we're going to get past that very fast and go directly to HLA sub-groupings. I think that's where the future of that concept lies.

I am taking part in genetic research with respect to my rheumatoid arthritis, which statistically does have a genetic component, and does run in my family. For that, they are looking at the HLA sub-groups for sure.

[puroresu]

Exactly! Thank you for an excellent post!

[Nebullis]

Do we simply capitulate to the demand, or do we say that since greens on average scored 10% lower than purples, greens will be represented in some areas at less than their population percentages?

I think there is truth to the cultural disadvantage of certain groups (on average). I don't think this contributes to absolute intelligence but I do think it is borne out in poor performance in schools. The difference in school performance between different racial groups is much greater than the difference on intelligence tests between these same groups. The proposed remedy, which is to enhance opportunity at the expense of successful individuals is wrong because it's based on incorrect assumptions. One is that poor performance is simply a problem of opportunity. Another is the typical leftist assumption that everything is a zero sum game.

[Nebullis]

It seems to me that we're going to get past that very fast and go directly to HLA sub-groupings. I think that's where the future of that concept lies.

Actually HLA typing is related to a set of very specific tissue antigens involved in immune reactions. As you know, rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune disorder. Tissue antigen typing is important for transplant immunity as well. You see, you are talking about a very specific instance of genetic testing.

Genetic testing for other diseases and for specific pharmaceutical tayloring go way beyond that and is a huge and growing field. It is a leap forward in medicine.

[Nebullis]

Your posts on this thread are excellent.

[CobaltBlue]

Actually I thought HLA typing was used to classify all antigens. My knowledge of genetics is quite sketchy and superficial. I haven't taken a gentics class since 1972 or thereabouts.

But I think my point is still valid. It's true, for example, that, say, Pima Indians are more likely to get Type II diabetes than other ethnic groups,but you wouldn't call Pima Indians a "race."

If you look at sub-Saharan Africa, "they" may "all look alike" to the Western eye, but to them the difference between, say, Hutus and Tutsis is enough to kill each other.

[Doctor Stochastic]

In any group there will be a bell curve of distribution reagrding any trait you can imagine.

Income?

It would be true if there were effective upper limits or if no individual were to dominate the population. Heights and weights cannot be on a bell-curve (normal, Gaussian, etc.) because there are no negative heights (but for the most part, heights and weights do lie close to such a curve.)