Talk:Race (human categorization)

The "Complications and various definitions of the concept" needs to be tossed out or extensively re-written.

Primarily this section does not do what its title suggests. It seems nothing more than an opinion piece from what would be termed in the United States a left wing political slant.

"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.[17][18][19][20][21][22]" [Emphasis added]"

This statement is either false or misleading, depending on how it is read, on account of the last portion of the sentence. There is no "consensus" that human racial groups could not be biologically defined; I provide references below. Whether common groups which are called races in e.g., the U.S. can not be is a distinct matter.

I am going to rewrite this as:

"There is no consensus as to whether there are human biological races [],[],[],[],[],[],[],[]; many argue that racial categories as used, for example, in the U.S. are socially constructed and cannot be biologically defined.[17][18][19][20][21][22]".

If there are any objections to this let me know.174.97.231.103 (talk) 18:27, 28 March 2014 (UTC)John

Kaszycka, K. A., Štrkalj, G., & Strzałko, J. (2009). Current views of European anthropologists on race: Influence of educational and ideological background. American Anthropologist, 111(1), 43-56. Kaszycka, K. A., & Strzałko, J. (2003). Race: Tradition and convenience, or taxonomic reality? More on the race concept in Polish anthropology Lieberman, L., Stevenson, B. W., & Reynolds, L. T. (1989). Race and anthropology: A core concept without consensus. Anthropology & education quarterly, 20(2), 67-73. Morning, A. (2011). The nature of race: How scientists think and teach about human difference. University of California Pr. Štrkalj, G. (2007). The status of the race concept in contemporary biological anthrop Strkalj, G., Ramsey, S., & Wilkinson, A. T. (2008). Anatomists’ attitudes towards the concept of race. South African Medical Journal, 94(2), 90. Wang, Q., trkalj, G., & Sun, L. (2003). On the concept of race in Chinese biological anthropology: alive and well. Current anthropology, 44(3), 403-403.

VBRS (variant/breed/race/subspecies) ?

Its interesting experiment to replace all the occurrences of "race" word with "melanilistic colour variant" or "breed"... and thus throw away majority of the emotions coined with the word race. What the article could look like then ? Do people have melanilistic color variants like wolves (black wolf) or big cats (black panther) ? Could we distinguish groups of people based on that trait like we do with other species ? Or maybe our species has breeds like dogs horses etc ? And final question what really should be a definition of race ? That is a phenotypical or genetical concept. There could be population very diverse genetically, even to the point of different species (Animals That Seem Identical May Be Completely Different Species) or there could be a very distinctive groups within one species that have only a few difference in genes , but all those different alleles are producing different characteristics like color or adult animal size and also maybe to the point that two of these populations do not mix. Next, I know historically the race concept has been drifting with meaning and with time encompassing bigger and bigger cohorts of people. But I think this is the effects of how people knew with time what is the extent of human variation. If in our times there would be other sub-species of humans living in Africa or Indonesia like Homo erectus etc. with clearly different mental capability and other phenotypic traits but they could mix with all other people living as that must be a reality some time ago then I think we consider all variation that we have now a one race and these now extinct subspecies as another races. Or if there would be in the past a successful experiment (or accident at the very distant past like 6 thousand years ago) to kill all black or non-European descent people (Tuskegee syphilis experiment). Then the variation would diminish and people (especially if that would be a long time in the past) would coin a new 'race' boundaries that would be similar to the original concept. Likewise in maybe some isolated island on pacific there would be concept of race (before white people came in) distinguishing phenotypes that for someone who didn't grow up with the people would be identical and not "worth" of categorizing. So in my opinion race is not a social construct in its all entirety - it is just measure of known human variation. It is the same like let's say in other species. Suppose that we discover a new specimen of lets say a tree/frog/monkey in some inaccessible part of rain forest in Congo or Brazil and first we see some population and we could draw a distinction between them (and we know that these are the same species) and give to them some Latin third name like in us Homo sapiens *sapiens*. And no one sees anything wrong with that. But then as we go deeper in the forest we see individuals with more diverging features and they diverge in the same extent that our initial known population - so we change the boundaries of race/breed/variant/subspecies and call our initial population as one and then (until of course we encounter again similar situation) we proceed to divide the rest based on updated knowledge about all intra-species variability we know. And there is also in-group variability. If we see a new plant or rodent species that their individuals are very different like in melanin content or size, but they live as one population and are breeding between them, we would not call the differences a VBRS (variant/breed/race/subspecies) but if there would be a feature of the habitat like a river or mountain that these individuals cannot easily cross (even if there would be some areas of mixing) then we do our distinctions. So in case of humans there were situations all over the world where one tribe or nation consider people living on the other side of river or forest or mountain to be not "like them" a different kind of people or even not people at all. But these people living amongst themselves cannot have knowledge that there are vastly different populations on earth and in comparison to them their distinction does not hold up. The case with VBRS is to have a relatively small number of them, otherwise we run in to paradox that every individual is VBRS on itself. But now we do know the whole earth, we do now what human variability is in terms of genotype and phenotype. So now coined distinctions are not prone to the same mistakes as those in the past. But if we want an answer to question are there human races or not we must first determine to what definition of race we are answering. Are we considering phenotypes as these are now, or are we considering the human migration process, genetics, etc... Or maybe a law is the criterion like in USA when you have populations that are phenotypically different like AA/blacks together with those based on culture like Hispanics... This are a very distinct concepts that are to itself like concept of fruit based on biological features and concept of fruit that is in EU law where carrot is considered a fruit. When I read such articles of discussions about race I feel like I'm reading quarrels where there are distinct categories fruits and vegetables or all things we eat are equal and everyone who thinks different is an ignorant foodist. So people in their heads are holding very different conceptions of race and what it shouldn't be. So if they read any scientific paper where the word is used and it is not debunked in the same paragraph (but surprisingly against our species only, we are blind of dog racism or horse racism... we aren't ashamed that we ignorantly categorize these equal beings into a races, yes ?) the person who writes it, if such person is in scientific position he risks his job very much because people already know what is a race and only thing what they need is a prayer from scientific community that is pedestal to their beliefs.

And there is another question of ethics. It's like with the question: "Can we make a ham sandwich from Dalai Lama?" The answer is yes of course. It could be done with the same tools that we use to work on pigs or cows in our slaughterhouses. There is nothing in reality, in laws of physics or logic itself to make this endeavor impossible like it is impossible with let's say a perpetuum mobile of the second kind (not to say the first). There would be none of cosmic string destroying the apparatus to make meat from human flesh (Did a Time-Traveling Bird Sabotage the Collider?). But question - is it ethical to do so, may have a very different answer. So is it ethical to distinguish races of our species is different question of that if it could be coherently done. But people really want that there would be some feature of the world that would prohibit making races of human beings. But that thing would also prohibit of making such disgust to dogs and horses. pwjb (talk) 12:35, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Mainstream nature of Nicholas Wade's view on race

Nicholas Wade's view on race is a mainstream pro-race view that should be added in for our articles on race and proponent views.174.95.171.228 (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Nicholas Wade is a journalist and author, who is reporting on other peoples research. The research he reports on regarding race and the view points associated with it is already. Wade's personal views which is what he reports in his book are essentially irrelevant, whether they are mainstream or not. If we started including popularized accounts by laymen then the page will quickly become unwieldy. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:56, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Nope. Not an appropriate source for this article. (I've met Wade at a conference, and I also would not characterize his personal view as mainstream, but rather as old-fashioned.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Please explain how Nicholas Wade's view is non-mainstream because the majority of experts on race like Razib Khan, James Thompson etc. think otherwise...174.95.171.228 (talk) 21:53, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

.Razib Khan is a graduate student who specializes in cats. Please quit going on an on about him, and read some actual academic literature on race published by academic presses. Yes his viewpoint is one of several mainstream viewpoints, because there is currently no clear consensus among scholars about how best to understand the relation between genetic clusters and the concept of race.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:57, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Razib Khan is known as an expert in population genetics and human biodiversity by the likes of John Hawks, Gregory Cochrane, Henry Harpending among others...174.95.171.228 (talk) 23:48, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Then I am sure he will soon publish something about that topic in a peerreiewed journal then. At that point it will make sense to continue this conversation.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:12, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Hippofrank's edits

I will post my proposed edits here. If no one objects within 24 hours I will finalize the edits. I expect to fight an editing war on some of these issues, but I hope we can more or less agree on others.

Section: "Complications and various definitions of the concept".

Edit #1. 3/28/2014

Original: "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.[17][18][19][20][21][22]"...

Note for edit 1: I changed this because the original was either misleading or false depending on how it was read. The original implied that there was a consensus against the existence of biological races. This is false. What is true is that many people agree that certain commonly used racial categories in the U.S. e.g., Asians do not characterize biologically scientifically defined races. Hippofrank (talk) 19:05, 28 March 2014 (UTC)Hippofrank

Edited Version: While there is no consensus as to whether there are human biological races , it is agreed that gene frequencies vary among human populations, some of which correspond more or less to traditional racial groupings. For this reason there is no current consensus about whether traditional racial categories can be considered to have significance for understanding human genetic variation.. There is a consensus that certain commonly used racial categories as used in certain countries, for example, Asians in the U.S., are socially constructed and cannot be biologically defined . Regarding these non-biologically definable racial categories, some scholars argue that they correlate with biologically conditioned traits (e.g. phenotype) to some degree and therefore can be genetically informative.

Edit #2. 3/28/2014 3:26 Eastern

Original: " When people define and talk about a particular conception of race, they create a social reality through which social categorization is achieved.[29] In this sense, races are said to be social constructs.[30] These constructs develop within various legal, economic, and sociopolitical contexts, and may be the effect, rather than the cause, of major social situations.[31] While race is understood to be a social construct by many, most scholars agree that race has real material effects in the lives of people through institutionalized practices of preference and discrimination."

Note for edit 2: This statement is fairly confused, so it needs to be changed. First, the term "social construct" is ambiguous; in common parlance it can mean "not a biological entity" while in philosophical parlance it can mean "not a natural kind". For example, in the philosophy of biology species are often said to be social constructs.

Edit #3. 3/28/2014 3:30 Eastern

Original: "[1] Socioeconomic factors, in combination with early but enduring views of race, have led to considerable suffering within disadvantaged racial groups. [2] [32] Racial discrimination often coincides with racist mindsets, whereby the individuals and ideologies of one group come to perceive the members of an outgroup as both racially defined and morally inferior.[33] [3] As a result, racial groups possessing relatively little power often find themselves excluded or oppressed, while hegemonic individuals and institutions are charged with holding racist attitudes.[34] [4] Racism has led to many instances of tragedy, including slavery and genocide.[35]

Note for edit 3: This whole paragraph needs to be rewritten. The first statement above is disputed. It has not been established that views of race, per se, have caused "considerable suffering within disadvantaged racial". This, rather, is a theoretical model. The second statement is somewhere between conjectural and inflammatory; members of defined outgroups (e.g., "their family), in general, are not preferenced; this is only tantamount to seeing them as "morally inferior"; this second statement also confuses moral inferiority with trait inferiority; the third statement is circular because " groups possessing relatively little power" and "excluded or oppressed" are typically operationalized the same way. The fourth statement is problematic because "racism" has no one definition; there is no consensus on what it is. One can only say "racism in some senses".

Proposed Edited Version (for edit 2,3): Regardless of the biological status of race, many scholars believe that the act of racial categorization can have socially significant effects on the lives of people through, for example, institutionalized practices of discrimination. [31] They believe that the act of employing racial classifications has led to considerable suffering within disadvantaged racial groups. From this perspective, racial classifications reinforce tendencies to discriminate on the basis of ingroup and outgroup, tendencies which can lead to the oppressed and exclusion if the groups being discriminated against possesses relatively little power. These scholars have also argued that beliefs about the biological reality of race condition racism, understood as the belief in inherent racial superiority and inferiority.

Am I to take it that the proposed edits are supported by the footnotes as shown in the draft here on the talk page? Do you have the sources at hand? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:10, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, let's go one sentence at a time. The first sentence clarifies that there is no consensus concerning the existence of biological races.

While there is no consensus as to whether there are human biological races , it is agreed that gene frequencies vary among human populations, some of which correspond more or less to traditional racial groupings ."Hippofrank (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2014 (UTC)Hippofrank

[13-17]

Kaszycka, K. A., Štrkalj, G., & Strzałko, J. (2009). Current views of European anthropologists on race: Influence of educational and ideological background. American Anthropologist, 111(1), 43-56.

Lieberman, L., Stevenson, B. W., & Reynolds, L. T. (1989). Race and anthropology: A core concept without consensus. Anthropology & education quarterly, 20(2), 67-73.

Morning, A. (2011). The nature of race: How scientists think and teach about human difference. University of California Pr.

Wang, Q., trkalj, G., & Sun, L. (2003). On the concept of race in Chinese biological anthropology: alive and well. Current anthropology, 44(3), 403-403.

Štrkalj, G. (2007). The status of the race concept in contemporary biological anthropology: A review. Anthropologist, 9(1), 73-78.

[18]

Hochman, A. (2013). Racial discrimination: How not to do it. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 44(3), 278-286.

This is an example of synthesis. Instead of constructing one sentence about two different topics, from different sources, allow me to suggest you start with 2-4 high quality secondary sources, summarizing what those sources say. If you can't find some high quality secondary sources to uses as a basis, I'm sure those can be dug up. aprock (talk) 23:08, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok. I can just use four of the first five references, since they say the same. For example Kaszycka et al. (2009) state:

"Advances in human genome research brought about an increasing number of discoveries of mutated alleles responsible for various metabolic changes, whereas the frequency of these alleles has displayed interpopulational differences. If there were differences between the “white” and “black” U.S. residents—for example, alleles of genes called PCSK9 (Cohen et al. 2006) or ApoE4 associated with LDL metabolism and indirectly the risk of heart disease—they were easy to label as “racial” differences (Burchard et al. 2003).... In that the argument proposed that knowledge of the frequency of alleles in individual distinguishable populations was of practical importance in the treatment of some diseases, it was quite correct, although this still did not make a population a race (Hoffman 2005). Thus, interpopulational diversity of the contents of the human genome discovered during the research is not an argument for the existence of races but merely for polymorphism, the range and determinants of which are worth investigating also for medical purposes (Jones 2001; Rotman 2005; Schwartz 2001)."

The idea is that it's trivially true that the populations called races differ in gene frequency. But whether these populations constitute biological races is a more complex and contentious issue. So, I will just change that to:

"There is no consensus as to whether there are biological races in the human species . And there is widespread consensus that many commonly used racial categories are socially constructed in the sense of not being biologically delineated . Nonetheless, it is generally agreed that those groups which are called races vary in gene frequencies. Because of this, there is no current consensus as to whether these groups can be considered to have significance for understanding human genetic variation."

These are excellent edits based on the best, mainstream sources. Go ahead.74.14.29.177 (talk) 06:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

If they all say the same thing, then I would suggest using the highest quality source, include page numbers, and an excerpt of the text you are paraphrasing. aprock (talk) 00:49, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The above seems to be the simplest and most balanced way of stating things. The main points are:

(a) There is little agreement as to whether there are human biological races. (b) There is much agreement that some/many common racial categories are not biologically defined. (c) There is general agreement that groups called races differ in genes frequencies. (d) There is no agreement as to whether groups called races have have significance for understanding human genetic variation.

A more elaborate discussion is really needed, one which distinguishes between the various debates about race. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hippofrank (talk • contribs) 01:37, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Please pick a couple secondary sources (your excerpt above lists at least seven). Please include page numbers for each source. If you feel up to it, please consider adding an excerpt from the sources you think are the highest quality sources that you are basing your content on. aprock (talk) 04:10, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the current mainstream secondary sources generally do a good job of digging into the data and relating the data to various issues that have been controversial over the years. I have several of the best sources at hand, as do other editors who have this article on their watchlists. Exact citations of particular sources are very helpful, as is signing comments posted to article talk pages. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 14:06, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

• It is false that there is any consensus that "racial groups" traditionally defined vary in gene frequencies, or inversely that gene frequency clusters correspond more or less to traditional racial groupings. See e.g. this special issue of AJPA [1], and particularly this article Hunley, K. L., Healy, M. E., & Long, J. C. (2009). The global pattern of gene identity variation reveals a history of long‐range migrations, bottlenecks, and local mate exchange: implications for biological race. American journal of physical anthropology, 139(1), 35-46. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:09, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

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Please note that Maunus is inserting his personal opinion based on a single source and ignoring international surveys of experts on the question. PlasticSpatula5 (talk) 10:15, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Survey's are not reliable source for scientific topics. aprock (talk) 11:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Surveys are the ideal source for gauging opinion on scientific questions. Whats else do you propose? Editor:Maunus's personal opinion? PlasticSpatula5 (talk) 12:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)