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New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

m.timesofindia.com

11–20 of 57 posts

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#11
post #2

If it's a fact, it's not racism. It's not personal. The fact that races diverged thousands of years ago suggest that they are genetically different through evolution. There's a lot to learn from genetic diversity rather than applying the racism badge to it every fucking time and ignoring it to pacify some over-sensitive idiots. This attitude is no better than witch hunts and mandatory religious laws. The contents and…

> The contents and tone of the article are awful and an affront to science and assume everything will result in Nazi eugenics programmes.

Because also the nazi program started by saying "If it's a fact, it's not racism".

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#12

"...spreading the belief that races exist and are different in terms of biology, behaviour and culture,..." Wait, is this not generally accepted? (As in, not generally accepted that they are different).

"There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined."[1]

From a genetic perspective there is basically no basis for the traditional categorization of race. Two people of the same skin color, from the same country, who would be considered by traditional definitions to be the same race, can have completely different genetic lineages. There is a National Geographic documentary that discusses this called "The Human Family Tree" that is available on Netflix.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%2...

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#13
post #2

If it's a fact, it's not racism. It's not personal. The fact that races diverged thousands of years ago suggest that they are genetically different through evolution. There's a lot to learn from genetic diversity rather than applying the racism badge to it every fucking time and ignoring it to pacify some over-sensitive idiots. This attitude is no better than witch hunts and mandatory religious laws. The contents and…

In fact, it can actually help killing nationalism as it shows that most cultural nations have a very diverse ancestry and thus are purely cultural phenomena.

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#14
It was never said that all humans where alike and to be handled the same way. You won't give the same birth control methods to male and female individual for instance. When speaking of equality, I think it is implied equality before society: equal rights, same laws, no irrelevant discrimination (I don't know how it works but I guess sellers are partially chosen depending on how they look and how attractive they are). It would not mean that you mean to be blind to factual and neutral evidence which leads to technical efficiency. From the original article:

> Published research has shown that blacks are more likely than whites to have a blood type that causes sickle cell disease and can protect against malaria, and are more likely to have a certain gene called APOL1, which protects against a parasite that causes sleeping sickness.

It is quite a good example of information that could help put a diagnosis on a person taking into account racial aspects. And I doubt it would count as racist in any way. Because not everything is black or white, they is a grey area:

> She cited new research urging that children be identified based on their genetically predetermined educational abilities and then put in separate schools that could be used to foster different kinds of learning.

This is a border line case: technically, it might mean more proficient teaching using adapted methods for both groups. However, this is also segregation. A way to draw some line would be to avoid discriminating social interactions: in this case, X kids are only interacting with X kids, which make a bias on the population distribution.

tl;dr: calling "racism" on non-biased factual evidence is quite harsh, but we need to be cautious when using such facts

Note: "non-biased" because Nazis did pretend to have factual evidence against Jews, but it was only pseudo-science propaganda (and, well, they only used it to justify arbitrary discrimination)

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#15
post #12

"...spreading the belief that races exist and are different in terms of biology, behaviour and culture,..." Wait, is this not generally accepted? (As in, not generally accepted that they are different).

"There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined."[1] From a genetic perspective there is basically no basis for the traditional categorization of race. Two people of the same skin color, from the same country, who would be considered by traditional definitions to be the same race, can have completel…

You might find this interesting : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewontin%27s_fallacy

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#16
post #12

"...spreading the belief that races exist and are different in terms of biology, behaviour and culture,..." Wait, is this not generally accepted? (As in, not generally accepted that they are different).

"There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined."[1] From a genetic perspective there is basically no basis for the traditional categorization of race. Two people of the same skin color, from the same country, who would be considered by traditional definitions to be the same race, can have completel…

> basically no basis

what's "basically no basis"?

> can have completely different genetic lineages

yeah so what? that does not really prove that the concept of race does not exist.

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#17

"...spreading the belief that races exist and are different in terms of biology, behaviour and culture,..." Wait, is this not generally accepted? (As in, not generally accepted that they are different).

I don't like this article. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25534 This (especially the end) might be better.

My understanding of the point is that genetics exist, but they rarely map along the lines of what we understand as races. It's an artificial taxonomy which works for a few things (like sickle cell) but from a genetic perspective you could draw the lines many ways.

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#18
post #11
post #2

If it's a fact, it's not racism. It's not personal. The fact that races diverged thousands of years ago suggest that they are genetically different through evolution. There's a lot to learn from genetic diversity rather than applying the racism badge to it every fucking time and ignoring it to pacify some over-sensitive idiots. This attitude is no better than witch hunts and mandatory religious laws. The contents and…

> The contents and tone of the article are awful and an affront to science and assume everything will result in Nazi eugenics programmes. Because also the nazi program started by saying "If it's a fact, it's not racism".

The problem is that the Nazis were not operating with facts. Surely you understand that...

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#19
I think that humans are extremely homogenous

http://www.ashg.org/education/pdf/geneticvariation.pdf

That is to say that the differences between me and the most different human (with not chromosomal disaster like Downs) are so small as to make arranging humans into groups according to their genetics meaningless.

Re: New forms of 'racism' arise in science research

#20
post #12

"...spreading the belief that races exist and are different in terms of biology, behaviour and culture,..." Wait, is this not generally accepted? (As in, not generally accepted that they are different).

"There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined."[1] From a genetic perspective there is basically no basis for the traditional categorization of race. Two people of the same skin color, from the same country, who would be considered by traditional definitions to be the same race, can have completel…

> can have completely different genetic lineages.

what about people who do have the same lineage?

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