Why Race-Realism is Pseudoscience

[Mikemikev]

The fact that you can tell the difference between Caucasians and Negroes proves the point.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

The fact that you can tell the difference between Caucasians and Negroes proves the point.

You can obviously tell the difference between people with different skin colors or other distinguishable external characteristics.

The issue is how much genetic differentiation between humans is there between populations with distinguishable anatomical traits.

I agree with Jabrosky though about the question of whether certain populations should be called races is less important than whether average intelligence varies between human populations. Which is a point that Graves brought up in the video.

 

[Pinkie]

Personally, I think they're all wrong, to one extent or another.
I don't consider the IQ test a method to accurately measure IQ and/or Intelligence. Too many variables to account for, some will be missed.


Thus, I don't consider the data all these theories appear based on solid and unquestionable, but rather more flexible and...questionable.
And since I question the base data, I question the conclusions and theories that have sprung from said source.




......
That said, I won't claim to fully understand the idea/theory behind IQ tests in the first place, so it's possible that I misunderstand the situation.

Homo sapiens CANNOT be divided into subspecies as a matter of science. Ergo, research into characteristics "based on race" cannot have scientific validity.

BTW, I agree the IQ test is invalid.

 

[Pinkie]

You can obviously tell the difference between people with different skin colors or other distinguishable external characteristics.

The issue is how much genetic differentiation between humans is there between populations with distinguishable anatomical traits.

I agree with Jabrosky though about the question of whether certain populations should be called races is less important than whether average intelligence varies between human populations. Which is a point that Graves brought up in the video.

Well, if this question were going to be explored, there'd first have to be a consensus on what constitutes "intelligence". Homo sapiens are approximately 250,000 years old, as a species.

For what percent of that time would you personally consider scoring well on a standardized test a "survival skill"?

 

[Mikemikev]

Homo sapiens CANNOT be divided into subspecies as a matter of science. Ergo, research into characteristics "based on race" cannot have scientific validity.

BTW, I agree the IQ test is invalid.

Nonsense. Humans can be divided any way you want, and sampled. Saying "it's a matter of science" doesn't make transparent nonsense true, unfortunately.

 

[Pinkie]

Nonsense. Humans can be divided any way you want, and sampled. Saying "it's a matter of science" doesn't make transparent nonsense true, unfortunately.

Perhaps I was unclear. There are, on this planet, as follows: animals, vegetables and minerals. The animals are divided into millions of species and some species are divisible into subspecies.

Homo sapiens CANNOT, as a matter of the biology, be so divided. We are all tracable to the same original ancestors. We can all reproduce sexually, if we are fertile, regardless of the appearance of or place of origin of the human of the opposite sex with whom we mate, also fertile. The children of all such parents can likewise mate and reproduce, if both are fertile, ad infinitum.

End. Of. Discussion.

By which I mean, the "scientific" pursuit of "racial" differences in homo sapiens is as a meaningful as one which seeks the Holy Grail, a unicorn, or any other fairy tale. Humans are creatures of high intelligence compared to other species, and we survive best in groups. The notion that homo sapiens can be divided into subspecies is (or has been) socially used to reinforce the sensation of belonging -- or not belonging -- to a group.

Scientifically and biologically, the notion that humans belong to different races has all the same value as a gang tattoo -- none whatsoever. It is a human behavior, for some a belief, but it is not a genetic division.

 

[Jabrosky]

The fact that you can tell the difference between Caucasians and Negroes proves the point.

Again, I don't really care whether or not you call certain human population clusters "races". It is totally tangential to whether some geographic populations are smarter than others. The existence of race would not by itself necessitate that those races differ from one another in intellectually or morally relevant ways.

 

[Pinkie]

Again, I don't really care whether or not you call certain human population clusters "races". It is totally tangential to whether some geographic populations are smarter than others. The existence of race would not by itself necessitate that those races differ from one another in intellectually or morally relevant ways.

It's not impossible, if they could not interbreed. Intelligence, assuming we can agree what that is, has environmental as well genetic factors. War, famine, pestlience, poverty, dispersel, etc. -- all of these can affect it, just as they can any other observable measurement of adult health and well-being.

But they CAN interbreed, and they do. In a generation or two, it'd be impossible to make guessetimates worth a damn based only on the genetics of the adults' grandparents -- not across huge populations of humans.

 

[Pinkie]

The fact that you can tell the difference between Caucasians and Negroes proves the point.

Someone does not know his lexiography.

Caucasian [kaw-key-zhuhn, -shuhn, -kazh-uhn, -kash-]  

Origin

adjective Also, Cau·cas·ic  [kaw-kas-ik, -kaz-]

1.Anthropology. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of one of the traditional racial divisions of humankind, marked by fair to dark skin, straight to tightly curled hair, and light to very dark eyes, and originally inhabiting Europe, parts of North Africa, western Asia, and India: no longer in technical use.

2.of or pertaining to the Caucasus mountain range.

3.of or related to the non-Indo-European, non-Turkic languages of the Caucasus region.

4.Anthropology. a member of the peoples traditionally classified as the Caucasian race, especially those peoples having light to fair skin: no longer in technical use.

5.a native of Caucasia.

Origin:
1800–10; < Latin Caucasi ( us ) (< Greek Kaukásios, equivalent to Kaúkas ( os ) Caucasus + -ios adj. suffix) + -an

Related forms
non-Cau·ca·sian, adjective, noun

Word Story

Coined by German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach at the turn of the 19th century, the racial classification Caucasian has sparked plenty of debate in its short time in the English language. First there’s the issue of Blumenbach’s mistaken etymology: he erroneously placed the origins of the “White” race in the Caucasus mountain region. He also, not at all humbly, knocked his predecessor, Carl Linnaeus’ singular method of studying teeth to determine race, calling it “artificial” and asserting that it “came every day to be encumbered with more troublesome anomalies.” Blumenbach, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of studying the entire skull to understand the quandary that is race.

When anthropologists first started studying race, white supremacy was popularly accepted. Blumenbach was, at least, a bit more progressive than his contemporaries, in that he believe that all men belonged to the same species, even if he considered the Caucasian race—his own race—to be the original type and the “most handsome and becoming” of all five races (Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, Malayan, and American) in his now-outdated classification.

It may interest you to know that there has never been a standing agreement, even in US law, as to whom was and was not "white". When race-based language first appeared in US law (other than in our constitution), "white" included anyone from the Middle East, except Jews, and excluded most southern Europeans.

The legal status of "white" in the US has mainly been used to control legal immigration, not surprisingly with an eye towards limiting the immigration of those deemed to be "non-white".

I can see quite well, and I recognize the differences in appearance of a man like Barack Obama and a man like Ted Kennedy. But even you surely know, if their children or grandchildren mate, they have no GENETIC barrier to producing healthy, fertile children.

This is the scientific acid test of what animals are and are not divisible into subspecies, Mikemikev. A horse and a donkey can mate and produce an offspring, but all such offspring are sterile. Biologists therefore class them as two difference subspecies.

Humankind is all one big DNA soup, and all of it mixes nicely. All of it traces back, ultimately, to the same ancestors. You (making an example, not a statement of fact) and your red-haired step-brother have more DNA variance between you than I do with most sub-Saharian Africans now living, and my folks were from Scotland.

 

[Jabrosky]

I find it strange that the dictionary definition of "Caucasian" cited above claims that "Caucasians" can have tightly curled hair in addition to the more typical straight hair; I would have associated tightly curled hair with Black Africans and New Guineans. Then again, "Caucasian" in many racialist circles seems to mean anyone with a narrow nose.

 

[Hicup]

Someone does not know his lexiography.



It may interest you to know that there has never been a standing agreement, even in US law, as to whom was and was not "white". When race-based language first appeared in US law (other than in our constitution), "white" included anyone from the Middle East, except Jews, and excluded most southern Europeans.

The legal status of "white" in the US has mainly been used to control legal immigration, not surprisingly with an eye towards limiting the immigration of those deemed to be "non-white".

I can see quite well, and I recognize the differences in appearance of a man like Barack Obama and a man like Ted Kennedy. But even you surely know, if their children or grandchildren mate, they have no GENETIC barrier to producing healthy, fertile children.

This is the scientific acid test of what animals are and are not divisible into subspecies, Mikemikev. A horse and a donkey can mate and produce an offspring, but all such offspring are sterile. Biologists therefore class them as two difference subspecies.

Humankind is all one big DNA soup, and all of it mixes nicely. All of it traces back, ultimately, to the same ancestors. You (making an example, not a statement of fact) and your red-haired step-brother have more DNA variance between you than I do with most sub-Saharian Africans now living, and my folks were from Scotland.

Since when? Since when must a subspecies be barred from interbreeding and sharing genetic material?

As far as tacing back to our ancestors, and then to their ancestors, at one time, or any time before a split, the species was singular. As is H. Sapiens, Sapiens are today, so too were the hominids, and homo. The difference back then was that geography and natural selection played a larger part in directing SotF (genes). Today we still have survival of the fittest genes, BUT, we do not for the most part have that process directed by our geography and environment. Our collective intellegence broke those barriers, and the result is a more diverse human species. I don't think anyone could argue that mankind is not better off, or at the very least, worse off. We simply do not know, but one thing is for sure, the differences we maintained for 1000's of years are becomming less and less distinct.

I stated in the other thread on the subject that, in some ways, if not THE way, Homo Sapiens, Sapiens are becomming one species; we are evolving that way, but we're not there yet. BUT what really irked me in that other thread, is that those who were against race distinguishability (For various reasons) in the NOW, were ignoring that we do indeed have distinguishable characterstics that we classify as race, or more accurately, subspecies. The proof of that is clearly that, if any one particular subspecies were to completely refrains from admixing and interbreeding, they would indeed, over time, ressemble other homo sapiens BUT would have distinguishable traits NOT found in other humans. The benefit, or lack thereoif is another speculative exercise, but that it would happen, and DID happen, AND is continuing to happen is undeniable.


Tim-

 

[Mikemikev]

Perhaps I was unclear. There are, on this planet, as follows: animals, vegetables and minerals. The animals are divided into millions of species and some species are divisible into subspecies.

Homo sapiens CANNOT, as a matter of the biology, be so divided. We are all tracable to the same original ancestors. We can all reproduce sexually, if we are fertile, regardless of the appearance of or place of origin of the human of the opposite sex with whom we mate, also fertile. The children of all such parents can likewise mate and reproduce, if both are fertile, ad infinitum.

End. Of. Discussion.

By which I mean, the "scientific" pursuit of "racial" differences in homo sapiens is as a meaningful as one which seeks the Holy Grail, a unicorn, or any other fairy tale. Humans are creatures of high intelligence compared to other species, and we survive best in groups. The notion that homo sapiens can be divided into subspecies is (or has been) socially used to reinforce the sensation of belonging -- or not belonging -- to a group.

Scientifically and biologically, the notion that humans belong to different races has all the same value as a gang tattoo -- none whatsoever. It is a human behavior, for some a belief, but it is not a genetic division.

No you are wrong. Any geographically associated variation can be divided and sampled. Races are the first major division. All living things share common ancestors.

End. Of. Discussion. :roll:

 

[The Mark]

No you are wrong. Any geographically associated variation can be divided and sampled. Races are the first major division. All living things share common ancestors.

End. Of. Discussion. :roll:

Even if so, and I'm not necessarily agreeing with you....to what end?

 

[Mikemikev]

Even if so, and I'm not necessarily agreeing with you....to what end?

Why do we study human variation? Maybe for the same reasons we study seagull variation. Just because it's interesting. And of course human variation has applications in bio-medicine (where race categories are in use, let me tell from experience) and in politics. For example the "race iq" question can answer whether it's really "all white peoples fault", or not, which has important policy implications. See for example "What if the hereditarian hypothesis is true?"

Of course some of a shall we say, Marxist persuasion, find the idea of cognitive variation uncomfortable, so try to undermine the debate with absurdities like "race does not exist (because {insert random fact})". They also tried to deny genes exist earlier, see the Lysenko affair.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Why do we study human variation? Maybe for the same reasons we study seagull variation. Just because it's interesting. And of course human variation has applications in bio-medicine (where race categories are in use, let me tell from experience) and in politics. For example the "race iq" question can answer whether it's really "all white peoples fault", or not, which has important policy implications. See for example "What if the hereditarian hypothesis is true?"

Of course some of a shall we say, Marxist persuasion, find the idea of cognitive variation uncomfortable, so try to undermine the debate with absurdities like "race does not exist (because {insert random fact})". They also tried to deny genes exist earlier, see the Lysenko affair.

If we're going to talk about motive for holding a viewpoint one can of course point out that most hereditarian research is financed by the Pioneer Fund which has ties to eugenics, Nazi science and other forms of racist research (see Racism Resurgent: How Media Let The Bell Curve's Pseudo-Science Define the Agenda on Race). If you listen to scholars who oppose racialism most of them will tell you plainly that you can not separate science from politics and that there are indeed ethical reasons for vigorously opposing some scientific theories. In the case of racialism it's not the fear that racialist theories are true that motivates its critics to debunk it but the recognition that in addition to being bad science it is socially harmful. Racialism is an underhanded way of denying the impact of racist social policies on modern society and the potential of Egalitarian policy recommendations to reverse the damage caused by racism (not to mention the improvements Egalitarian policies have already made).

 

[Mikemikev]

If we're going to talk about motive for holding a viewpoint one can of course point out that most hereditarian research is financed by the Pioneer Fund which has ties to eugenics, Nazi science and other forms of racist research (see Racism Resurgent: How Media Let The Bell Curve's Pseudo-Science Define the Agenda on Race). If you listen to scholars who oppose racialism most of them will tell you plainly that you can not separate science from politics and that there are indeed ethical reasons for vigorously opposing some scientific theories. In the case of racialism it's not the fear that racialist theories are true that motivates its critics to debunk it but the recognition that in addition to being bad science it is socially harmful. Racialism is an underhanded way of denying the impact of racist social policies on modern society and the potential of Egalitarian policy recommendations to reverse the damage caused by racism (not to mention the improvements Egalitarian policies have already made).

It doesn't even seem to occur to you that "it's all white peoples fault" theory might actually be incorrect.
Your position is subjective-normative and not based on facts.
Maybe negroes are less successful not because of past "racism" but because they are less intelligent? You are basically now just assuming we are equal and blaming "white racism" for inequality.
At least you are not saying "race doesn't exist" anymore. :roll:
And what's with the "bad science" nonsense? "Bad" as in you don't like it? Tough luck. You've basically gone ad Hitlerium. I think we're done.

The fallacy most often assumes the form of “Hitler (or the Nazis) supported X, therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad,”[1]. For example: “Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism is wrong.” The tactic is often used to derail arguments, as such a comparison tends to distract and to result in angry and less reasoned responses.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

It doesn't even seem to occur to you that "it's all white peoples fault" theory might actually be incorrect.
Your position is subjective-normative and not based on facts.
Maybe negroes are less successful not because of past "racism" but because they are less intelligent? You are basically now just assuming we are equal and blaming "white racism" for inequality.
At least you are not saying "race doesn't exist" anymore. :roll:
And what's with the "bad science" nonsense? "Bad" as in you don't like it? Tough luck. You've basically gone ad Hitlerium. I think we're done.

You pulled the Marxist card first. The funny thing about that is that you can not accurately ascribe the negative aspects of Marxism to me or the scholars I cite while I can accurately label you a racist and charge the scholars you cite with advancing a racist agenda. I'm not assuming anything. Racialism has already been exposed as pseudoscience. That exposure is the topic of this thread. It's not real science and the motivation for such research is to argue that racist stereotypes have a basis in reality that are rooted in genetic differences between humans. Once that is established racists believe they can make a stronger case for racist social policies like racial separatism. Personally I would consider racist views and policy recommendations to be immoral even if racialism were right. But it is important to point out that it is not right and it is not science. It's propaganda. Any reasonably intelligent person can recognize it as such.

 

[Mikemikev]

You pulled the Marxist card first. The funny thing about that is that you can not accurately ascribe the negative aspects of Marxism to me or the scholars I cite while I can accurately label you a racist and charge the scholars you cite with advancing a racist agenda. I'm not assuming anything. Racialism has already been exposed as pseudoscience. That exposure is the topic of this thread. It's not real science and the motivation for such research is to argue that racist stereotypes have a basis in reality that are rooted in genetic differences between humans. Once that is established racists believe they can make a stronger case for racist social policies like racial separatism. Personally I would consider racist views and policy recommendations to be immoral even if racialism were right. But it is important to point out that it is not right and it is not science. It's propaganda. Any reasonably intelligent person can recognize it as such.

I wasn't actually addressing you. "Race does not exist" is so transparently stupid there must be some kind of motive. Whereas both sides of the race IQ debate are debateable, Flynn and Nisbett are not Marxists, Rushton and Jensen are not Nazis. "Race does not exist" proponents have some kind of deep seated vested interest. Of course you can label me a "racist". It's an incredibly vague and esssentially meaningless word. It just means "applying the concept of race". Call me a racist, I don't care. You just make yourself look childish.

 

[Mikemikev]

I find it strange that the dictionary definition of "Caucasian" cited above claims that "Caucasians" can have tightly curled hair in addition to the more typical straight hair; I would have associated tightly curled hair with Black Africans and New Guineans. Then again, "Caucasian" in many racialist circles seems to mean anyone with a narrow nose.

Caucasian was originally defined by Blumenbach and means Europeans, West Asians, South Asians, and North Africans.
Caucasians can have tightly curled hair, narrow noses, or not. Race is defined by ancestry and involves many traits. One or two anomalous traits are not unexpected.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

I wasn't actually addressing you. "Race does not exist" is so transparently stupid there must be some kind of motive. Whereas both sides of the race IQ debate are debateable, Flynn and Nisbett are not Marxists, Rushton and Jensen are not Nazis. "Race does not exist" proponents have some kind of deep seated vested interest. Of course you can label me a "racist". It's an incredibly vague and esssentially meaningless word. It just means "applying the concept of race". Call me a racist, I don't care. You just make yourself look childish.

You attacked a position I support and I responded to it. My response was not personal either. You're making it personal. As far as the label racist is concerned it's only vague and meaningless to people who don't like the word. Racism is hatred or intolerance based on race. It's racial bigotry. That is a simple concept to understand which has real world significance. It's not childish to call someone a racist. Some of the worst atrocities in human history have been committed by those who can be reasonably described as racist and using racism to justify their actions. In fact to suggest otherwise is patently dishonest.

The question of the existence of biological races is a legitimate scientific topic. The validity of certain taxonomic classifications is also not unique to humans. Zoologists argue all the time about species and sub-species classification of non-human organisms. The biological classification of humans obviously has social significance since many social policies have been based on assumptions about human nature and human differences. But it also has medical significance. This idea that scientists who evaluate the validity of certain models of human variation and come to the conclusion that they may be inaccurate are simply advancing an absurd ideological agenda is false and if a person takes the time to learn about this research you can clearly see that.

 

[Mikemikev]

Racism is hatred or intolerance based on race. It's racial bigotry.

It isn't though. A cyclist is someone who uses cycles. Not someone who "uses cycles with hatred, bigotry and supremacism". A violinist uses a violin, a psychiatrist works with the mind, a botanist studies plants. "Racist" is Marxist usurpation of standard language, straight from Trotsky. A "racist" is someone who studies or uses the concept of race, nothing more or less. This is what the suffix -ist means. If you want to call me a "racial bigot" or "race hater" or "racially intolerant" go ahead and I will discuss it. But don't call me a "racist". It's stupid.

 

[Mikemikev]

Leon Trotsky, after helping Lenin to create the Soviet murder machine in which he and Trotsky killed 1 to 4 million[2] people, was removed from power and expelled from the Soviet Union in the year 1929 after losing a power struggle to become Lenin's successor to Josef Stalin. However, before fading into the pages of history, Leon Trotsky would do one last thing in 1930 that would arguably cause more damage to the West than Stalin and his successors' entire Soviet nuclear arsenal could ever have done. He would invent a word that would empower literally the most rotten, traitorous weasels within the West to redefine those loyal to their people, their cultural traditions and way of life as the worst evil, and to send the government, the education system, and the mass media on an absolute royal crusade until they themselves and virtually everyone else around them actually believe it. And this unholy creation would be repeated over and over again, bolstered by revisionist history fabricated by more of the same rotten weasels falsely portraying the white man as the sole perpetrator of slavery and genocide in the world, and this would go on and on until the West would submit via demoralization to the entire Trotskyist internationalist agenda without a single shot being fired. We can see the final stages of this playing out right now, with racial double standards having been created here in America (at the expense of American whites, of course), with the creation of "racism" and "hate speech" offenses in Europe (only targeting the indigineous population, of course), with the Canadian and Australian governments having implemented "multiculturalism" as official state policy (at the expense of the pre-existing Canadian and Australian cultures), and most of all, with the huge wave of third-world immigration into the West, supported by all Western governments (otherwise it wouldn't be happening), which is radically changing the makeup and culture of those countries, and is threatening their original populations with becoming a minority in their own countries within just a few decades.

The Unpopular Truth: "Racist" -- A Word Invented by USSR's Leon Trotsky

 

[EgalitarianJay]

It isn't though. A cyclist is someone who uses cycles. Not someone who "uses cycles with hatred, bigotry and supremacism". A violinist uses a violin, a psychiatrist works with the mind, a botanist studies plants. "Racist" is Marxist usurpation of standard language, straight from Trotsky. A "racist" is someone who studies or uses the concept of race, nothing more or less. This is what the suffix -ist means. If you want to call me a "racial bigot" or "race hater" or "racially intolerant" go ahead and I will discuss it. But don't call me a "racist". It's stupid.

This is nothing more than wordplay.

Racist in common usage is a word ascribed to people who advocate racism, which is hatred or intolerance based on race.

That's why when you look the word up in a dictionary the definition associates the word with racism.

Racist | Define Racist at Dictionary.com

Racist

noun
1.
a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is superior to any or all others.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/racism?s=t

Racism

noun

1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.


I don't care who coined the word or what you think the suffix is meant to imply. It has a real world meaning.

But even if you want to go that route the word is not inconsistent with standard language.

Ist | Define Ist at Dictionary.com

-ist
 
a suffix of nouns, often corresponding to verbs ending in -ize or nouns ending in -ism, that denote a person who practices or is concerned with something, or holds certain principles, doctrines, etc.: apologist; dramatist; machinist; novelist; realist; socialist; Thomist.


Online Etymology Dictionary

Racist

1932 as a noun, 1938 as an adjective, from race (n.2); racism is first attested 1936 (from Fr. racisme, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories. But they replaced earlier words, racialism (1871) and racialist (1917), both often used early 20c. in a British or South African context.

 

[The Mark]

THE POSTS!

They're GROWING!!!


/abject cower

 

[Matt Foley]

hehe, silly Global Warmists.