Talk:Race (human categorization)

What is with this completely unscientific attitude to this article?

Chart showing human genetic clustering.

There are actual reports on actual human gene clustering who happen to overlap with phenotypes of "race" and a few select people completely remove this information? If a study is countered by another study then talk how the study A says X and study B contradicts X. Don't remove A altogether because of own agenda. There are plenty of studies actually following up on A in the literature that explain why X exists. Nergaal (talk) 15:00, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

We have an article on human genetic clusters, that describes in some depth the challenges of using genetic clusters as if they are directly relevant for the question of races as biological groupings. The current article also describes this debate, though perhaps we could summarize that article better here - but simply reproducing Rosenberg et al's findings as if they are conclusive is not the right way to do this.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:07, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, I see that the current state of the article states that race has no roots in biology, which for several years now has been more and more countered. I am sure the entire article is in pitch perfect shape of actual most recent scientific research, and is not instead the representation of the personal opinion of a few select editors. Nergaal (talk) 15:14, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• And no, Nicholas Wade is not an neutral or reliable source for anything having to do with the relation between racial categories and the genetic sciences (read here how scientists have received his work). You clearæly do not actually know what the standing of this question is in the literature or in the relevant scientific fields.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:16, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• You are the one who are selecting a couple of sources that argue in favor of biological race without having any apparent clue of their actual scientific standing or how they have been received. That is unscientific cherry picking in the extreme, and is the wrong way to write a balanced informative article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:19, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oh, turns out you really wanted to prove me right. I love how a new article actually just happen to appear again in NYT just two days ago: With the help of these tools, we are learning that while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real. Have fun making sure you misinterpret the actual consensus amongst the scientific community. I am sure you will prove that the the geneticist at Harvard Medical School has retrieved DNA from more than 900 ancient people. His findings trace the prehistoric migrations of our species is wrong.Nergaal (talk) 15:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I love how you resort to passive aggressive handwaving and additional cherry picking instead of actually informing yourself.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:24, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

• I see your NYT op ed and raise you with a The Guardian feature article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • "Gavin Evans lectures at Birkbeck College and is the author of several books, including the memoir, Dancing Shoes is Dead. He has written widely on issues of race, IQ and genetics" Or in plain language, he does NOT do research. Anyways, even people who argue against race as an objective genomic classifier use the diagrams you are so quick to ignore. Nergaal (talk) 15:43, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

You are not mounting an actual agrument here, just a pissing contest. There are hundreds of genetics researchers who disagree that genetic cluster analysis is vindicating the race concept - 140 of them signed the statement rebutting Nicholas Wade. It is absurd to think that Rosenbergs cluster analysis which has been widely criticized as basically one random clustering structure that is an artefact of alreayd having used racial categories in the sampling process, should be featured prominently and with no discussion of the problems and arguments. Noone gets wiser from that. You are the one who is on a crusade here to make it appear as if one side in a complex and controversial debate is "winning", I am telling you that that is not the case, and that we do not help wikipedia or any of our readers by presenting it like that. If you start making some argued proposals for how to change the article and you get consensus for those proposals here - then we can proceed, but continuing with snarky passive aggressive comments and cherry picked sources is a waste of both your and my time.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:56, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Nah, this article in its current state is flawed since it starts from the statement "race is a social construct". There is absolutely no mention of genes inherited with intermixing with Neanderthals/Denisovarians/Erectus that happened after "out of Africa" event. There is no mention how some physiologic outcomes are traced from genes that came out of these interbreeding events. Even the least controversial section, "Race and health" completely ignores actual outcomes that are strongly correlated to what people in the field call "Race". If you think that the most important thing of an encyclopedia is to make people comfortable, instead of actually presenting balanced opinions than you are doing a great job. Have fun babysitting this article. Nergaal (talk) 15:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The most important thing in an encyclpedia is to give a view of topics that is actually representative of the mainstream scientific views on a tpoic and which does not privilege certain random viewpoints that we may personally be attracted to. You seem to be more interested in having it representing a certain hotly contested viewpoint as if it were now the dominant one.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Nah, as this opinion puts it nicely, you fight racism with understanding what DNA says, not with ignorance. Right now the article reads like a hit-piece, completely ignoring the most recent research in the field because it has thoroughly been curated by personal views. Nergaal (talk) 16:09, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree. What is important is understanding what DNA says - and a majority of geneticians do not think that genetics contradict the statement that race is a social construct, or that it validates traditional rwcial categories. Genetics can give us an extremely nuanced and detailed understanding of human biological variation, and reducing that to outdated and socially harmful ideas about racial categories does the exact opposite of making us more informed about human biology or about race. I am no huge fan of the article as it is ow, and I would prefer to rewrite it fro scratch giving a much better and more nuanced picture of both the biology of human genetic variation and ancestry and the historical processes and social dynamics that create racial groups as meaningful social categories . But in practice the hidge podge that is this article is the result of a deadlock between editors who want to represent the biological view of race, and those who dont and there are few possibilities of actually advancing. Fruitless exchanges like this one come up every one or two months, and keep the article in a permanent state of limbo presenting neither side of the argument well and giving a confused view of the issue.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:27, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Fruitless exchanges like this one come up every one or two months, and keep the article in a permanent state of limbo presenting neither side of the argument well This is the expected outcome to the de facto stance you adopt "anything new will not be put in". I am sure every time you or someone like you takes it out you think "I can't possibly expect someone else come in 2 months and mention the same exact thing, since me putting the head in the sand now is what is "a majority of geneticians think". Nergaal (talk) 16:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

You are not attempting to put anything new in. You areb attempting to put a POV in that we have already discussed extensively about how to include. You are also not producing any new arguments, only snarkiness and handwaving. And you are not demonstrating that you have anything more than a passing familiarity with the literature on the topic. So yes, that is what a fruitless exchange looks like. A fruitful exchange would start with actually recognizing that the topic is complex and that your favourite articles may not represent the consensus view.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:23, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

As I've been pointing out on the talk pages for related articles, WP:RS specifically discourages us from using isolated studies. Isolated studies are usually considered tentative and may change in the light of further academic research. If the isolated study is a primary source, it should generally not be used if there are secondary sources that cover the same content. Especially in scientific articles, we're meant to summarize the broad scientific consensus, not to serve as a dumping ground for random one-off studies that gave the results individual editors wanted. If a study is significant, and its results have been borne out elsewhere or its interpretation of the data is broadly-accepted, then it should be easy to find secondary sources elsewhere. --Aquillion (talk) 17:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't think this has to do with an isolated study. A tenured professor at Harvard has publications on this. But if you think "race is a social construct" is what wikipedia "ought" to be about then fine by me. Nergaal (talk) 19:45, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

There are tenured professors at Harvard who have books about race being a social construct. Please drop the idea that because Reich is at Harvard he represents the final truth. It is an intellectually immature idea. If you take the time to look at the major recent publications in the field, in textbooks that students are being taught after about race and about human biological variation then you have a chance to mount a sensible argument about what is or isn't an isolated study. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we can look at recent publications to see whether an ancestry based race concept is in use.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=(asian+ancestry%2C+african+ancestry%2C+european+ancestry)

Apologies for referencing international biology rather than American sociology regarding whether something is biological. I see that it's not done in your article. Слагмастер (talk) 14:37, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

is human categorization by race pseudoscience?

• eugenics is often deemed a pseudoscience because what is defined as a genetic improvement of a desired trait is often deemed a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined through objective scientific inquiry.
• Scientific racism is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority; alternatively, it is the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes or genotype into discrete races.

I suggest we add this article to the category pseudoscience and perhaps place a note at the top warning readers the concept is viewed as false by a majority of scientist. Darkstar1st (talk) 14:15, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Categorization into races is no pseudoscience, it is a social process just like the formation of nations or ethnic groups or football teams. What is pseudoscientific is to claim that such social groupings are defined primarily by shared biological traits.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:26, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Race as used by natural scientists is defined by shared ancestry like any other taxa. That's how they (Kant, Darwin, Rushton, et al.) defined it. Of course this article lies by omitting this. Race by that definition is very obviously a biological construct. Lying about this fact is the only pseudoscience here. Some race concepts are of course not strictly defined by ancestry and could be called "social". If someone defines race by ancestry (standard biological criterion), how can you claim their definition is different? Are you so arrogant as to make up fraudulent strawman definitions for the concepts of others? Tl;dr some race concepts are biological, and not "social", if we take "social" to imply "not biological". Слагмастер (talk) 14:20, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

It is true that it would be possible to have biological races if they did in fact make up well defined taxa within the human population. That would not be pseudoscience. But the groups that are generally considered human races are not taxa and are not defined by ancestry - and therefore it is pseudoscientific to treat them as if they are, which is what for example Rushton did.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:35, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

It's completely irrelevant whether "the groups that are generally considered human races", whoever is generally considering them and what they consider them to be, are taxa defined by ancestry. Let's assume you're right and "generally considered" races whatever they are are defined by skin color or something and don't match ancestry based taxa. The point you're evading is that some race concepts, notably those used by Rushton, Darwin, etc. are defined by ancestry, and so were not your "generally considered" non-ancestry based concepts. It's just a brazen lie to claim Rushton did not use an ancestry based concept, rather a "generally considered" one, whatever that is. Слагмастер (talk) 14:46, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

No, Rushton simply claims that social races are ancestry groups, but that is a pseudoscientific belief contradicted by fact. So yes, his race "concept" is ancestry based, but all of his actual applications of the concept to data are not. Which is kind of discrepancy between theory, evidence and application that is pretty characteristic of pseudoscience.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:51, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Nope. Africans share ancestry versus Europeans versus East Asians. I'm not sure what logical contortions you have to go through to deny that. I'm guessing some fake data about "diversity" from PBS or something. The entire field of medicine and genetics seem to disagree with you:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=(asian+ancestry%2C+african+ancestry%2C+european+ancestry) Слагмастер (talk) 15:02, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

The entire field you say [1][2]?·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:08, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

So in the face of an ancestry based race concept, conforming to the classic categories, being in regular use throughout medicine and genetics right now, you bring up a letter supporting no current evidence (either way) for genetic IQ differences from genetics? That's totally irrelevant. Слагмастер (talk) 15:17, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Include Darwin's definition of race in the article to balance the strawman definitions

WP:EVADE/WP:DENY EvergreenFir (talk) 18:54, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
"Grant all races of man descended from one race; grant that all structure of each race of man were perfectly known—grant that a perfect table of descent of each race was perfectly known.— grant all this, & then do you not think that most would prefer as the best classification, a genealogical one, even if it did occasionally put one race not quite so near to another, as it would have stood, if allocated by structure alone. Generally, we may safely presume, that the resemblance of races & their pedigrees would go together."[3] Слагмастер (talk) 14:25, 23 April 2018 (UTC) Yes, and so what? Of course Darwin also thought "races" were ancestry based groupings. But we know that he was wrong in that belief. We know know that it is not possible to know perfectly the structure of each "race" or to could have a perfect table of descent. So whether he is right in that under those circumstances a genealogical understanding of race would be logically preferable, is irrelevant. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:57, 23 April 2018 (UTC) He defined races as ancestry based groupings. How could that be "wrong"? That's his definition. Would you apply the same arguments to other ancestry based groupings in biology? That we may not be able to get a "perfect" table of descent? Flatly asserting that the definition is "wrong"? How about you take your absurd sophistry to the phylogenetics page? Tell them their definition of classifying by descent is "wrong" and their results aren't "perfect". Слагмастер (talk) 15:30, 23 April 2018 (UTC) The definition was wrong in that it does not correspond to the reality of the groups we talk about as "races". It is not wrong a priori, but only in its lacking correspondence with empirical reality. I have no problems with phylogeny or ancestry based classifications, but human racial groups are not taxa, and much less are they monophyletic taxa..·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:39, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Contradiction (paragraph on France) and lack of references

The article currently says "approximately five percent of the French population is non-European". This is arguably a false statement as by definition French citizens are European. You may rephrase it for example by saying that the contemporary French population has various origins, some of which come from its former colonies.

Another point of contention is that the five percent figure is not justified by a reference. There are no ethnicity information in national French census, so I don't know how the author came up with that number. If it comes from a statistical survey, the reference should be mentioned.

Lastly I suggest that the sentence "Since the end of the Second World War, France has become an ethnically diverse country." could be revised as follows: "Ethnic diversity in metropolitan France has increased after the second world war and the rapid dismantling of its colonial empire." The current version seems to imply that it wasn't ethnically diverse before the war. The colonial empire brought ethnic diversity early on. A famous example of a metis in nineteenth century Paris is Alexandre Dumas. And though possibly rare it was by no means an isolated phenomenon.

But more than anything, I believe that the article wouldn't suffer if we would remove that paragraph on France entirely. Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:C50E:89BE:C800:2164:5432:F048:946 (talk) 13:15, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I think you may be confusing European as defined by location and as defined by ancestry. And I think you need better sources for "diverse" than one person. 99.999999999...% ethnic European isn't "diverse". John Burgundy (talk) 10:17, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Lede tone is un-encyclopedic

Currently the lede section does not talk about what race is but instead sets up unflattering targets to knock down to persuade the reader not to think certain things about race.

This is an inappropriate tone for an encyclopedic article, it reads like the forward to an undergraduate 'intro to social philosophy' chapter.

The article seems to be written mostly from within the sphere of a particular brand of social anthropology. It uses snarl words to describe other approaches. Even if population genetics does not primarily deal with the language and concepts used to discuss race in a social context, it nonetheless deserves great weight and prominence since its findings are the primary evidence by which any past or current theories implicating race can be evaluated.

The lede section needs to neutrally explain the modern concept of race in the relevant disciplines and as a heuristic in medicine, government censuses. The historical theories can be laid out later. We would not begin an article on disease by laying out an ancient theory of evil spirits. If nobody works to reform the lede, after an appropriate period I will begin rewriting it.