Posted on 03/21/2016 6:32:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
African is merely a continent of origin, white people born in Africa are Africans, black people born on either the North American or South American continent are Americans, it has nothing whatsoever to do with skin color or other racial differences and you don’t have to be a United States citizen to be American. It makes no more sense to refer to black people as African American than to refer to all white people as European American. Oh, by the way, what the heck does “antropologist of science and medicine” mean?
bump
So it makes more sense to limit the racial classifications to these three rather than the current politically inspired hodgepodge used by the U.S. government for racial classification purposes.
There are genetic differences but the big difference isn’t genetic. We have a problem with some Black people behaving abominably because they were raised to (or not raised at all).
If (insert name of latest Black kid shot by the cops) had been adopted by a normal White family he’d be alive and tattoo free today.
Nurture > Nature
The poison in the Black community is in the mind, not the blood.
It sure would screw up the crime channel if it were true.
I have read it - but if I were to argue in favor of the concept of "race" (i.e., that it is NOT 90% a mere construct), then I would cite data on the distribution of pigmentation, dolichocephaly / brachycephaly, blood types, etc. - long before I resorted to such debatable findings about I.Q.
Indeed, the Bell Curve is predicated on the concept of "race" - it assumes it a priori - and so to refer to it in this discussion is to commit the fallacy of petitio principii.
Regards,
I agree the term “race” is ill-defined and often misused.
Even the biological classification of “breed” seems I’ll suited to human beings.
But what can be measured objectively are differences in DNA, though even there, my understanding is we find more than ten times the number of differences within any given “race” as between any two “races”.
Further, I’ve read there are fewer DNA differences between, for example, Europeans and Asians than there are among various populations in Africa..
What does it all mean?
I’d say the word “race” doesn’t mean much.
It turned out to be densely populated with roughly 12,000 tribes and 6,000 languages. Most of them were darker skinned than most Africans, but they couldn't be classified as African. Beyond the scattered coastal tribes which Australian and other traders had encountered, they couldn't be accurately classified as Melanesian either.
They were also using tools from the stone age, so they essentially have advanced tens of thousands of years in the last 80 years alone. Plus they have gone from a constant state of tribal warfare to being one of the more functional third world countries on the planet, a remarkable achievement in a short time.
Ignorant.
“I am merely saying that human “race” is equivalent to animal “breed” and plant “variety”.
They do indeed signify differences in appearance, though very little difference in terms of underlying DNA.”
Aren’t some breeds of dog smarter than others?
Culture is in the DNA also.
Yes, but there's a key difference with humans, and we can verify it from our own experience.
Just consider all the members of our extended families, OK, including in-laws & out-laws. ;-)
Now, we readily admit that some are smarter than others, right?
And some are more athletic, others musically inclined, some more adept with numbers, others very good with people, etc., etc.
Point is: for humans there's a wide range of talents & abilities within our own families & "races".
And, so it turns out, this range is greater within our groupings than are the averages between most groups.
For example, within most normal populations we can find individuals with IQs of 80 to 150, a huge spread.
But most "races" average out to about 100, plus or minus a few.
And many groups have experienced steady increases in IQ over many years, suggesting there's more to it than just genetics.
Bottom line: "race" is far from the greatest factor contributing to the many differences we see amongst humans.
“But most “races” average out to about 100, plus or minus a few.”
Not according to Herrnstein and Murray. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve
“And many groups have experienced steady increases in IQ over many years, suggesting there’s more to it than just genetics.”
What it suggests to me is that the people who have been saying since the 1970s that IQ tests are racially biased have made progress in biasing them toward blacks.
“But most “races” average out to about 100, plus or minus a few.”
Not according to Herrnstein and Murray. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve
“And many groups have experienced steady increases in IQ over many years, suggesting there’s more to it than just genetics.”
What it suggests to me is that the people who have been saying since the 1970s that IQ tests are racially biased have made progress in biasing them toward blacks.
You may be missing my point here, and getting some ideas backwards.
I had to read a long ways before getting to Murray's bottom-line: IQ is about 60% genetics, 40% environment and blacks average 15 points lower on IQ scores.
So, looking at those same numbers, I think we can say:
Bottom line: the 40% of IQ which is not genetically predetermined is certainly enough, given good education, to raise up an "average" child to well above average or, correspondingly, reduce a potential genius to failure under the wrong circumstances.
Do you disagree?
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