The Final Frontier

I read the article and I still don't think race is a valid construct. If we were to follow this guy's logic, your sister would be considered a different race because she has genetic differences (e.g. female vs male).

While it makes sense to use genes to search for clues for diseases and some groups share genes, race never has been a valid group. All they're able to say is that people who live close together have similar genes but we already knew that because that's how humans reproduce. That's becoming even less relevant today as people are uprooted across the planet and maryy and have children with people from very distinct regions.

I think its a longer term grouping which includes heritable environmental adaptations/mutations, which confers some measurable difference from other equivalent groupings of the same species.

Racism is an evolved trait. Least, that's the psychological theory for it.

The problem with this is that our current form factor (both physically and psychologically) evolved to suit an environment that has not existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Isn't it time to move on from it?

Lykeios wrote: Isn't it time to move on from it?

I think it will pale into insignificance if we ever meet intelligent alien life :silly:

Adder wrote:

Lykeios wrote: Isn't it time to move on from it?

I think it will pale into insignificance if we ever meet intelligent alien life :silly:

Fair play to ya! Hahaha

Still, if that's what it will take I don't have much hope for our survival after meeting said extraterrestrials.

A lot of people say that race doesn't exist. It's generally accepted as fact, but then again, it's the only opinion on the issue that's allowed in the mainstream. The final verdict on race is really far from reached, though, as the issue is not settled, but suppressed. The "mainstream" opinion on the issue is not a result of science, but of social change in the post-war era. "Racism" is the new blasphemy.

To prove my point, look at what kind of answers we get for the tough questions.

"Why do black kids perform worse than white kids in school?" White racism (and the consequences thereof) and culturally biased education.

Now, let's ask another question.

"Why do Asian kids perform better?" Cultural emphasis on academic performance.

Now, while I agree that past policies in the USA marginalized and disenfranchised blacks, and while I agree that east Asian cultures do stress academic success (very apparent if you ever visit Singapore!), these two answers contradict each other. Most Asian kids are at least partly raised in a completely alien culture to that of the USA, and even if they are perfectly Americanized, they're still not white. Yet they do better than any other group academically, except, perhaps Ashkenazi Jews. So, Asian kids have to deal with cultural bias/insensitivity AND racism (and I honestly believe Asians in the USA have a worse time with race issues than blacks, and I can defend this assertion), but somehow are over-achievers. Mind you, a large number of Asians in the US are Vietnamese "boat people" who came here a couple generations with literally nothing, but attained success and quality of life comparable to the white middle class within a generation.

That's one example, let's open this debate!

Nurture, as I posted in the " Why are our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents? " thread about a month ago;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KFBs--n94YM

Adder wrote: Nurture, as I posted in the " Why are our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents? " thread about a month ago;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KFBs--n94YM

I get what you're arguing (or what the video is arguing by proxy), but come on. Explain to me the utter failure of Africa, and don't say colonialism/racism/imperialism because it had plenty long enough to build civilizations before those things came on the scene.

It's time to stop making excuses and look at reality. That's at least what I believe.

Star Forge wrote: I get what you're arguing (or what the video is arguing by proxy), but come on. Explain to me the utter failure of Africa, and don't say colonialism/racism/imperialism because it had plenty long enough to build civilizations before those things came on the scene.

It's time to stop making excuses and look at reality. That's at least what I believe.

Failed at what, development? One person's development is another person's destruction. It's unrealistic to exclude pre-colony activity just as its unrealistic to use a cultures history as indicator of possible neurological differences in races.

There could be a zillion factors.... modern western and eastern development is not the norm for humanity, its a rare exception probably bought about by a range of variables. One thing seems likely, that cultures tend to promote themselves and change often comes from external forces. Perhaps that is a benefit of capitalism, that the force to change is derived from trade instead.

I'm open to all possibilities, and nurture is over nature as the leading one from what I've seen so far.

Adder wrote:

Star Forge wrote: I get what you're arguing (or what the video is arguing by proxy), but come on. Explain to me the utter failure of Africa, and don't say colonialism/racism/imperialism because it had plenty long enough to build civilizations before those things came on the scene.

It's time to stop making excuses and look at reality. That's at least what I believe.

Failed at what, development? One person's development is another person's destruction.

You're on to something with this part. Whenever I have this debate, somebody always assumes that I'm proposing a hierarchy of racial superiority, based on either IQ or something else. You are very spot-on to say that different cultures have different standards for civilization, success and failure. This is entirely true. Let me ask you this, though. Let's look at pre-colonial Africa and compare it to its contemporaries. Compare African bushmen at any point in time during the pre-colonial era to a contemporary European or Asian or Inuit or anything. Of course, it's not the European or Asian's fault that the African lacks a written language, metallurgy, fortifications, gunpowder, or a rich language. Following that logic, why do people consider it unusual or bad today that African-Americans don't achieve as much as white Americans, or why does the entire world try to "fix" Africa, rather than let it be itself?