I would like to discuss race with others without personal attacks.

A claim I'd like to make is that the categorization of race is real and based in biology and not a subjective social construct. So it is a taxon below Homo Sapiens Sapiens. A sub-sub species. A breed. Another claim is that racial categorization has a primary influence on such things as intelligence and abilities.

All taxonomic categorizations can be broken down mathematically along correlations of genes and gene expression.  So the genetic code of a vertebrate has a closer correlation to the genetic code of another vertebrate then to non-vertebrate. And vertebrates and non-vertebrates are more closely correlated to each other then either are to bacteria. This is essentially the fundamental source of all classification.

So classification does not stop at sub-species. Correlations continue on down to the individual. And so the individual is a categorization itself. From the bottom up the next correlation is the nuclear family. Then a collection of nuclear families closer to each other then to other groupings of nuclear families. Then the groupings of groupings of nuclear families form ethnicites (such as slavic or gemanic). Ethnicities form races. Races form the sub-species.

The issue is that even if one claims race does not exist, the concept of the categorization still does. Just because one claims race is not real biologically we are not prevented from continuing the categorization along lines of correlation. So it becomes a matter of "a rose by any other name".

Some other mentions:
Race is not just skin color. This is one of the most problematic misunderstandings about race. Race is essentially a description of the whole genome in the same way species is. So when we say human x is race this or that, we are saying "this human's genome consists of such and such correlations resulting in certain probabilities for what the genome will build."

The external physical traits such as skin color and facial structure have high correlations to what we refer to as race and so often they are mistaken as race. The exterior of a human is a proxy for the genome. It is like a window into the genome.

I often come across this claim:
"There is far more genetic variation within groups then between them."

Essentially if one creates categorizations where the above claim is true then one has categorized improperly. The whole point of categorization is to bring like and like under an umbrella. If the above claim is true about humans then one is simply not doing categorization correctly.

The claim I believe results from a misunderstanding of what weight to give to similarities and differences. The logical foundation of the above claim would result in the conclusion that a ripe, well shaped, healthy apple is more similar to a ripe, well shaped, healthy orange then it is to an old and rotten apple. In the end you are still comparing apples and oranges.


-- Edited by Machine on Thursday 22nd of April 2010 11:46:00 PM

-- Edited by Machine on Thursday 22nd of April 2010 11:47:05 PM