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Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

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Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#81

Post by cloudfifty »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #78
bytelines wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize. This is very different from saying "race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science". She is arguing that the perceived consensus or widespread acceptance of the idea is wrong. You're asserting that "social justice [ideologists]" or sociologists (you seem to…

>>Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize. You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large. This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologis…

To deny that race is a social construct by word salads full of "left-wing victim-hood" etc is even more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#82

Post by singularity2001 »

cheese_van wrote: post #63
ofTheFountain wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea as a biologists who's done some genetic research this isn't about wokeness (though I don't think that's necessarily bad anyway). Race is a cultural term, not scientific. No one doing this research thinks there's no difference in genetic makeup between groups, it's that how we use and thinK about the word race doesn't line up with those groups and differences. It's just not accurate for scientific publications, no…

Yes, "race" for geneticists is an imprecise term and in that field there is a growing need for a better descriptor. Now for cops, or social workers, or everyday speech, race may be just the perfect term - morphology is important to their work, and will remain important. But geneticists are concerned with more than morphology, or appearance. I don't believe there is a linguistic threat here to everyday speech, or a th…

I agree we need a better term. Maybe 'cluster', as they are distinguishable in PCA plots.

One interesting aspect of these clusters is that the higher the resolution, the more clusters you can find, up to the point that neighboring towns can have slightly different distributions.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#83

Post by civilized »

wrp wrote: post #45
civilized wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm really not following all the talk of "wokeness" here. Race is a social category that often says something about your ancestry, and about certain traits like skin color and statistical predisposition to certain genetic diseases. But ancestry is the actual genetically meaningful thing. So why would we want researchers to use the outdated concept of race? Is it woke to prefer oxygen to phlogiston?

"Race" when referring to humans is equivalent to "breed" when referring to animals. Both terms, as used in biology, refer to groupings of heritable traits. Is "breed" an invalid concept because a Poodle can mate with a Labrador?

By this standard, the African bush and the villages of India should be full of thousands of "races" because of the high genetic diversity and relative reproductive isolation of many populations therein, which far exceeds that which delineates our conventional racial classification. But in the real world, race always refers to the same old Negroid/Caucasoid/Mongoloid classification that a few Westerners came up with in the 1700s.

Why is that? Does it feel plausible that Science fixated on the Biologically Correct racial classification of humans over a century before Mendelian genetics and the germ theory of disease became widely accepted?

Or is it perhaps more plausible that racial classification came into vogue for other, more unfortunate reasons, which are now well-known and documented, and then persisted by mere inertia and conventionalism/conformism?

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#84

Post by bytelines »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #78
bytelines wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize. This is very different from saying "race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science". She is arguing that the perceived consensus or widespread acceptance of the idea is wrong. You're asserting that "social justice [ideologists]" or sociologists (you seem to…

>>Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize. You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large. This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologis…

I dont really have much to say about your political rant other than to point out the irony of some reality denying ideologist misrepresenting what people think or say being a central theme in your argument.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#85

Post by adolph »

nefitty wrote: post #61
adolph wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> suddenly feeling really fucking alone on the plane of authority. Maybe you are in fact alone on a plane you call authority.

To clarify, I meant that as a figure of speech. As in, there's different contexts of reality that individuals can look to, for example family, work, etc. On my personal view of the context of authority figures, it seems to be more and more vacant as time goes on. I did not mean I'm physically in an airplane. Sorry for the mix up.

In terms of ways of understanding described in David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity” you are on a path that may lead to understanding the world more clearly.

Relativism The misconception that statements cannot be objectively true or false, but can be judged only relative to some cultural or other arbitrary standard.

Instrumentalism The misconception that science cannot describe reality, only predict outcomes of observations.

Justificationism The misconception that knowledge can be genuine or reliable only if it is justified by some source or criterion.

Fallibilism The recognition that there are no authoritative sources of knowledge, nor any reliable means of justifying knowledge as true or probable.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#86

Post by golemotron »

fundad wrote: post #35
golemotron wrote: post #21

The sad thing is that once they find a substitute term it will eventually be considered problematic too. This is the "euphemism treadmill." [1] [1] - https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/1994_04_03_newyo...

It’s called progress.

It's more like a turntable skipping. You always end up back where you started.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#87

Post by alphabettsy »

_od5n wrote: post #79
alphabettsy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No problem. I believe you’re using discredited research that's popular amount the race realism crowd and feigning ignorance by acting as if it’s unpalatable but true to you.

And I think you're assigning me malicious motiviations, and ignoring valid research that doesn't support your own prejudices. To be painstakingly clear about what I'm saying here: while the 2R MAO-A allele is more common among black males than in other groups, it's only present in a single-digit percentage of even that most-affected group. Of all those men with the allele, most don't commit any crime. Only The troubl…

I don’t believe you have malicious intent.

What you’ve posted tells me I was exactly on point with what you’re getting at. I’m familiar with race realism, science used to support it, and the people who believe in it.

I believe you’re probably well-intentioned, but you know what they say about that.

> recent crime spikes in American cities for examples, where de-policed minority communities have been among the hardest hit by rising violence.

They probably appreciate your concern, but how can you list so many studies and still assert something widely untrue like the “de-policed minority communities”.

My issue isn’t with the science. It’s that people like yourself take the science and attempt to use it to justify circumstances or policy while ignoring seemingly all else.

I’ve seen all but the last study you’ve listed before, but I'm not interested in engaging with you further. I'm certain there are plenty that are willing to hear and share your ideas.

Maybe you could even make some money and write for them; https://prowhiteparty.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/black-people-...

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#88

Post by CryptoPunk »

cloudfifty wrote: post #81
CryptoPunk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize. You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large. This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologis…

To deny that race is a social construct by word salads full of "left-wing victim-hood" etc is even more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.

Using a lot of words to describe a complex reality != word salad, your disingenuous characterization notwithstanding.

And that "race is a social construct" idea is part of a victimhood narrative is totally obvious. See how the idea is nested here for instance:

https://www.vox.com/2014/10/10/6943461/race-social-construct...

>>Americans bought into this idea, too. Why was it so appealing? "Americans of European descent invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery," historian Barbara J. Fields explained in a presentation to the producers of PBS's series Race: The Power of An Illusion (which is worth checking out for more detailed information on all this).

The journalists at Vox are fully unionized by the way.

Any way, this kind of victimhood/injustice framing is extremely common, and was even posited by the other commenter in this very discussion!

>>will you at least concede that race was a social construct? And that it predated our understanding of genetics and was used to, among other things, justify slavery, eugenics and other human misery?

But now you want to gaslight people into believing that this victimhood narrative isn't the main context in which the concept appears?

>>more deluded than your "the news is a union conspiracy" posts.

Your pithy response to my argument that unionized news staff have an economic interest in promoting left wing political ideas - when I've elaborated at length as to why I believe this is the case - suggests you're approaching this issue very emotionally, and not in a good faith attempt to open-mindedly explore what I'm saying to see if it's true.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#89

Post by CryptoPunk »

bytelines wrote: post #84
CryptoPunk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Dr Morning's assertion is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists overemphasize. You're being disingenuous, in not fully describing Morning's assertion. The assertion, fully described, is that "race is a social construct" is a minority position, and one that sociologists claim is a universally held among scientists at large. This is deeply mistaken claim by the sociologis…

I dont really have much to say about your political rant other than to point out the irony of some reality denying ideologist misrepresenting what people think or say being a central theme in your argument.

I have provided my evidence and rationale. If you can't handle providing a meaningful response to it, and resort to this low-effort dismissal, it says more about your confidence in your own argument than it does about my argument.

Re: Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

#90

Post by bytelines »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #89
bytelines wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont really have much to say about your political rant other than to point out the irony of some reality denying ideologist misrepresenting what people think or say being a central theme in your argument.

I have provided my evidence and rationale. If you can't handle providing a meaningful response to it, and resort to this low-effort dismissal, it says more about your confidence in your own argument than it does about my argument.

Oh you've provided much more than that lol
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