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Why are Europeans White?

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Re: Why are Europeans White?

#101

Post by jessriedel »

laughinghan wrote: post #83
jessriedel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the way, the "race" categories that are used in the United States are arbitrary, subject to rewriting from time to time for political considerations, and do not correspond to any scientific view of geographical populations. These categories are hardly arbitrary, they are political. We separate people into republicans and democrats, too, but just because this separation is not based on genetics or geography does…

I think his point was that race is often presented as a biological categorization, when in fact, biologically speaking, it is completely arbitrary, i.e. determined by factors completely independent of biology (specifically, politics, as you pointed out).

But even that isn't really correct, right? It's definitely true that the racial categorizations chosen by the census aren't great at dividing up humanity by genetic distance; there is probably a lot of genetic diversity in some particular race, while other races deemed distinct are nearly genetically identical. (And obviously, all humans are exceedingly similar genetically on an absolute scale.) But the the census races aren't useless or random biologically. There are plenty of diseases which have higher prevalence in some races than others. Whites are more likely to get skin cancer, less likely to be lactose intolerant. Asians are more likely to get alcohol flush reaction. Blacks are the exclusive sufferers of sickle-cell disease.

If he wants to say "the races as defined by the census are only weakly correlated with genetic distance or geographic ancestry", then fine. But that's a far cry from "the 'race' categories that are used in the United States are arbitrary...and do not correspond to any scientific view of geographical populations."

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#102

Post by jessriedel »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #100
jessriedel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the way, the "race" categories that are used in the United States are arbitrary, subject to rewriting from time to time for political considerations, and do not correspond to any scientific view of geographical populations. These categories are hardly arbitrary, they are political. We separate people into republicans and democrats, too, but just because this separation is not based on genetics or geography does…

The author of the linked post has a entire book about the legal cases that set down these categories in the US. He does seem to think they are both arbitrary and bad (and somewhat unique to the US, unlike slavery and racism which are not a uniquely US phenomenon), in roughly the same way that a libertarian would object to everyone being pigeonholed as either a republican or a democrat since they believe themselves to…

The author clearly has a problem with racial preference in college admissions. But this cannot be attacked by pointing out that racial categories are only weak biological indicators, because the justification for racial preferences is political and not genetic. And insofar as the racial categories are trying to capture the political dimension, they do a pretty darn good job.

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#103

Post by rue »

Tichy wrote: post #98
edj wrote: post #77

There's another school of thought that attributes the variety of hair, skin, and eye color in Europe to sexual selection rather than the brightness of the sun. In brief, Europe during the last glacial period offered very little food for women to gather, so women were almost completely dependent upon men for hunted meat. As a result of this imbalance, women developed striking looks to attract men. For an example of th…

So the way to look more sexy was to start looking weird? That sounds rather arbitrary to me. Why not grow three boobs or develop wings or whatever? Anything can be explained like that.

No…evolution is about the past, not the future. It has no goal in mind.

In this theory, for some reason the women with those traits (which in all likelyhood existed before) became to be seen more desirable, thus lead to more offspring, thus becoming dominant.

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#104

Post by SageChara »

ygmelnikova wrote: post #79

Of course, there's another reason that's been kicking around for decades. A pair suddenly shows up in Mesopotamia around 6000 years ago. Their descendants taken captive by Assyria, and their eventual migration into Northern Europe as the Anglo Saxons / Celtic peoples. http://www.livescience.com/9578-common-ancestor-blue-eyes.ht... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

I couldn't agree with you more.

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#105

Post by ygmelnikova »

ygmelnikova wrote: post #79

Of course, there's another reason that's been kicking around for decades. A pair suddenly shows up in Mesopotamia around 6000 years ago. Their descendants taken captive by Assyria, and their eventual migration into Northern Europe as the Anglo Saxons / Celtic peoples. http://www.livescience.com/9578-common-ancestor-blue-eyes.ht... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

Are the down votes due to the science I linked to, or personal bias? Never mind, I already know the answer.

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#106

Post by ygmelnikova »

ygmelnikova wrote: post #79

Of course, there's another reason that's been kicking around for decades. A pair suddenly shows up in Mesopotamia around 6000 years ago. Their descendants taken captive by Assyria, and their eventual migration into Northern Europe as the Anglo Saxons / Celtic peoples. http://www.livescience.com/9578-common-ancestor-blue-eyes.ht... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

"Hine's work The British Nation Identified with Lost Israel (1871) sold up to 250,000 copies"

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#107

Post by ygmelnikova »

ygmelnikova wrote: post #106
ygmelnikova wrote: post #79

Of course, there's another reason that's been kicking around for decades. A pair suddenly shows up in Mesopotamia around 6000 years ago. Their descendants taken captive by Assyria, and their eventual migration into Northern Europe as the Anglo Saxons / Celtic peoples. http://www.livescience.com/9578-common-ancestor-blue-eyes.ht... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

"Hine's work The British Nation Identified with Lost Israel (1871) sold up to 250,000 copies"

"It has been claimed that by the early 20th century there were more than two million British Israelites in Britain and the United States"

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#108

Post by edj »

Tichy wrote: post #98
edj wrote: post #77

There's another school of thought that attributes the variety of hair, skin, and eye color in Europe to sexual selection rather than the brightness of the sun. In brief, Europe during the last glacial period offered very little food for women to gather, so women were almost completely dependent upon men for hunted meat. As a result of this imbalance, women developed striking looks to attract men. For an example of th…

So the way to look more sexy was to start looking weird? That sounds rather arbitrary to me. Why not grow three boobs or develop wings or whatever? Anything can be explained like that.

A peacock's plumage is rather arbitrary and weird, as well. But for whatever reason, vibrant plumage worked to attract the attention of peahens, so it was selected for.

I've heard it argued that the existence of decorative traits indicates fitness because it shows that an organism has a enough extra energy to devote to decoration.

But that's speculative. Sexual selection isn't really a logical proces. It's just an accumulating response to stimuli, over time.

Re: Why are Europeans White?

#109

Post by TheSOB88 »

Zenst wrote: post #95
TheSOB88 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue grass eh? What the hell? I have never heard of such a thing, and I suspect the people who downvoted you hadn't as well. Also: >Why are Europeans White? Because none of them are Wong :-) and there not actualy white. This is not the kind of serious scientific discussion expected here - you're supposed to be making some kind of point. You're not explaining anything by saying "they're not actually white". Also, sadl…

Well light works as a negative when it bounceds of a object. you have ared object it will obsorbe the red light reflect the rest. This is why grass which looks green isn't actualy green. How can people not understand light refraction!!! My spelling and grammer isn;t great, - thanks for highighting exactly what was wrong - not. I have aspergers, so may explain why I was born in the UK. Sorry if my joke as highlighted…

I think you are mistaken - red objects bounce red light back. They absorb the other colors.

I think you were just trying to be a smartass with this reversed light thing, so you were downvoted. :\

Anyways, just try to have a more serious intellectual discussion. Also, don't be a jerk. Saying "NOT!" after something is pretty immature and aggressive.

As far as spelling/grammar errors, here's one: "bounceds of" instead of "bounces off". Also, you used "there" instead of "they're".

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