Museum of Science explores science, concept of race (race doesn't exist, according to Liberals)

MetroWest Daily ^ | 1/20/11 | Bergeron

[pabianice]

"...Combining scientific, anthropological and historical evidence, the exhibit argues the fundamental concept of race and racial differences has no biological basis but is a man-made distinction with immeasurable social consequences over the centuries.

Developed by the American Anthropological Association and Science Museum of Minnesota, "Race" invites visitors to examine race and racism through exhibits, interactive stations and artifacts..."

[MrEdd]

http://www.amazon.com/End-Racism-Principles-Multiracial-Society/dp/0684825244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295564215&sr=8-1

[allmendream]

Yes, there is a biological basis to say that a Golden Retriever is physically different than a Chihuahua, and that a POPULATION of Golden Retrievers is physically different (based upon genetic differences) than a POPULATION of Chihuahuas.

But we, as humans, have defined what a Golden Retriever or a Chihuahua is; and have rigorously maintained their blood lines and pedigrees.

Humans have not been nearly as meticulous in their own bloodlines, and neither are the categories as clearly defined.

Where in Europe do people stop being Southern European and become Northern European? There is no such line. Yet you can tell that there is a physical (and genetic) difference that exists between Norwegians and Italians.

[allmendream]

Human phylogeny based upon genetic distance to estimate time of most recent common ancestry.

[MrEdd]

Ludicrous.

All of those groups have intermarried throughout the past, and comtinue to intermarry today.

It would seem your little chart has several orders of magnitude too few categories.

[allmendream]

A few tons of Mediterranean dumped into the Black Sea and it is still the Black Sea and can be told, via chemical analysis from the Mediterranean.

The numbers at the top of the chart are a measure of genetic difference.

And while indeed there are many more “categories” that were not included on the chart, in other words more data could expand and refine the chart - the chart itself is what it is, a distorted reflection of reality looking through the prism of genetic difference. It is not ludicrous, perhaps ludicrously incomplete, or ludicrously simplistic as a way of looking at human populations; but the chart was not drawn arbitrarily - but according to DNA data.

Moreover it reflects what is known about the historical association of these groups and their most recent time of common ancestry to other groups. The measured parameter reflects what is already known from other independent lines of inquiry.

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
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[Pharmboy]

This is certainly in keeping with their latest pronouncement (the following is from a blog on Nature.com):

Hold the science, says anthropology society - November 30, 2010

Is anthropology a science? Don’t ask the American Anthropological Association (AAA), which recently voted to strike the word “science” from its long-term mission statement.

At the society’s annual meeting in New Orleans two weeks ago, the AAA’s executive board voted to change its long term goal statement from: “The purposes of the Association shall be to advance anthropology as the science that studies humankind in all its aspects” to: “The purposes of the Association shall be to advance public understanding of humankind in all its aspects.”

Three other mentions of science were removed from the three-paragraph statement, while teaching and promoting public understanding were emphasized.

The changes have drawn the condemnation of data-collecting anthropologists, including the Society for Anthropological Science, which is a subsection of the AAA.

At the Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars and an anthropologist, says the change represents longstanding tension over whether human culture should be studied using a data-driven scientific approach, or with a more interpretative perspective that's characterisic of humanities scholarship.

My own view of anthropology is that it is a hybrid discipline. Its main scholarly tradition is rooted in science, or at least the aspiration for science. If those roots wither or are cut off, anthropology will lose any real claim to serious intellectual attention and perhaps even its identity as a discipline. At Psychology Today, Alice Dregger singles out “fluff-head cultural anthropological types who think science is just another way of knowing.”

Not all cultural anthropologists are fluff-heads, of course. You can usually tell the ones who are fluff-heads by their constant need to look like superheroes for oppressed peoples, and you can tell the non-fluff-heads by their attention to data. But the non-fluff-head cultural anthropologists are feeling utterly beleaguered in this environment that actively denigrates science and consistently promotes activism over data collection and scientific theorizing.

Damon Dozier, a spokesman for the AAA, tells Inside Higher Ed that the mission statement changes are not a fait accompli and that they represent changes in words, not values. "We have no interest in taking science out of the discipline," he says. "It’s not as if the anthropology community is turning its back on science." Posted by Ewen Callaway on November 30, 2010

[RegulatorCountry]

That really depends upon your expectations of a dog, now doesn’t it?

[SunkenCiv]

They have to push agitprop about this -- no such thing as race nationality...

[wardaddy]

I suggest folks here who think race is irrelevant try living somewhere outside whitelandia or an homogeneous environment

and just observe

there are precise physical and cultural grouping and overlaps on the edges

folks who think race is irrelevant are naive

and btw...case you ain't noticed race is very relevant to paternalistic white liberals and socially moderate conservatives who sing kumbaya and think all bad on the black man as well as good flows from the white race

NOW THAT LAST LINE DEFINES RACISM to me..like poor little pet black folks are so dependent on the white folks to be good to them

and those goofballs who spout these platitudes are blissfully unaware of their own bigotry at the same time they decry a realistic and empirical interpretation of race based difference or similarities

[wardaddy]

and MLK was a conservative too...don’t forget..Beck says so...even Sarah spouted some sweet talk (gag)

I support her but that goes in the debit column

[colorado tanker]

Meanwhile, the libs in the government insist that the smallest differences among animals justify new "species." "Prebbles Mouse" looks just like a common field mouse. For a time the government gave up and reclassified it as just a mouse. Then some liberal bureaucrats brought in a scientist who has never once in his career failed to identify an animal as a unique "species." Yep, that's "science" alright."

The mouse, like most endangered species, seems only to live on land owned by developers.

[MrB]

Because it works.

“We” shut up when called “racist”.

I’ve ceased to be worried about such namecalling, though, as I have a very effective answer.

[MrB]

I am a PROUD “culturist”.

To argue against “culturism” would be to argue that no culture is superior or inferior to another,

and who would want to try to defend that premise?

[MrB]

“Culturist” won’t work for them.
They’ll have to insist that it is the same thing as “racist”, and many do, but they really can’t defend it.

Racism has to do with belief in inferiority or superiority based on genetic makeup.

Culturism has nothing to do with physical attributes or genetic makeup and everything to do with behavior patterns in a culture.