Talk:Carleton S. Coon

Coon is wrong about the distribution of Caucasoid subraces

He names belgium as an example of the nordic race. I am Belgian and i should only take a look out of the window to see that is NOT the case. And i am not living amongst immigrants. He probably named "us" nordic because the language we speak, but you can see clearly people look rather alpine/dinaric.

Not true, Coon claimed that nordic, alpine and dinaric people were all present in Belgium. So you could only claim that he got the % wrong. Coon never claimed that any nation was composed of merely one of his subraces, in fact I don't think that he ever even claimed that any nation in Europe had >50% of any subrace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.27.11 (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Dinarization? What the heck?

The text of this article mentions "dinarization," but there is no such word. If people are going to make up words they should take to writing novels. If they are importing technical terms that haven't made it to the dictionaries yet, then they owe their readers a definition. P0M 03:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Dinarization is a word from The Races of Europe far as I can tell....

Yes, it is very much a word from said text. Myrkkyhammas 14:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

"When reduced Upper Paleolithic survivors and Mediterraneans mix, occurs the process of dinarization which produces an hybrid with non-intermediate features."

Since when could people be "hybrids" ????? futurebird 04:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Since always, I'd imagine. People are animals as well, Futurebird. Myrkkyhammas 14:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't the entire historical controversy be centred around hybridisation/miscegenation?

Tamrhind 17:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

these people seem to take it pretty seriously. I think that gives us a good idea of the um... "usefulness" of this word. futurebird 04:27, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I take it you're not aware of the obvious fallacy your comment above suffers from. Myrkkyhammas 14:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of www.snpa.nordish.net as a source

I may be completely off-base, but www.snpa.nordish.net seems suspect. Although it claims not to have a political or racist POV, and I didn't find anything on there that appeared racist outside of the copy of Coon's work, I did find some discussion board posts on places like Stormfront which seem to be saying there used to be a racist forum there. Perhaps, even if that's true, the site no longer has an agenda, but it smells fishy to me. 71.82.214.160 23:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The site is devoted to the concept of race, which is now basically rejected by mainstream science, and it claims that "no significant studies on the topic have been made since the 50s" (I quote by memory). The very concept of "nordish" appears to be widely used by white nationalists. --91.148.159.4 14:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The concept of race is not "basically rejected by mainstream science" unless by "mainstream science" you really mean "the Marxist/post-Marxist revisionist junta currently dominating anthropology." The rejection of the notion of race as a physical phenomenon becomes more and more common the further one gets from the hard sciences - that is, most biologists accept race as a physical phenomenon whereas most cultural anthropologists reject it. Be careful with what you say: it's because of people like you that the real bigots are gaining popularity via poking holes in all your fallacious revisionist claims. Myrkkyhammas 15:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, about 80% of biologists reject the notion of race as anything else than a cultural construct, and that number goes up to 89% for physical anthropologists (according to Lieberman in his paper from 2001), so I would say yes, it is rejected by most of mainstream science as a useful way to subdivide human genetic diversity.--Ramdrake 19:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Compare also what Britannica has to say, as well as our own article on race. Myrkkyhammas seems to adhere to an extreme minority view, and to be very emotional about it, too, judging from his wording above. I don't edit in this field, but I would recommend that more people should take a look at this, so as to avoid undue weight / a POV slant. --91.148.159.4 19:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

First, that 80%/89% statistic is highly suspect - what exactly are you citing? Second, I said nothing of "genetic diversity." I was talking about race as a physical phenomenon in general and while yes, DNA is an example of a measureable, physical entity, it is not the only one. Others include skin pigmentation, hair form, stature, skull form etc. - all of which are very real are physical entities. I, for one, am convinced that they have no influence on the meaningful aspects of humanity (e.g. intelligence, creativity, criminality etc.) but to deny that they exist altogether is dishonest and perhaps even dangerous. Myrkkyhammas 18:10, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

To answer your question, the reference can be found in Lieberman (2001)[1], an article called: How Caucasoids got such big crania and why they shrank - From Morton to Rushton. However suspect you may think it is, I didn't invent it.--Ramdrake 18:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC) —

The website may seem fishy but I have a copy of Coon's text and they seem to have it copied word for word. Myrkkyhammas 15:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

If so, the book itself should be cited, rather than the fishy website.--91.148.159.4 19:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Myrkkyhammas 18:10, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

THIS WEBSITE SNAP NORDISH IS BIASED!!!

they have missed sections out of carelton coons races of europe on purpose.

they left out the 're-emergence of the mediterranean element in the british isles' section on purpose!

they are a bunch of nordicists.

Human species.

Different types of Human IE Carcasions and (for want of better words) Negroes and Mongoloids. Im guessing these aren't designated as separate species, are these classed as being a different Genus? BTW I'm not a white supremacist of nothing, I have black family and I'm part Jewish, I'm just interested.

Not even genus, I wouldn't have thought. At the VERY most, subspecies perhaps.

Tamrhind 17:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's odd that his name should be "Coon" when he is known for controversial race theory

Merely a coincidence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by HisSpaceResearch (talk • contribs) 13:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Multiregional model and racial hierarchies

A reference is made to Proceedings of the NAS in 1999, regarding the finding of the skeleton in Portugal. The paper referenced does not say what the editor implies, however.--Parkwells (talk) 21:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

This article is lacking substance. The Criticism section needs to be supplemented so that people can understand what late 20th c and contemporary thinkers concluded about Coons. I don't think it's there yet, even though the abstract of an article on the reception of his 1962 book was copied.--Parkwells (talk) 21:39, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Falling into Disfavor

This paragraph notes that Coon couldn't absorb new work by several scientists (Lewontin and Gould) who were considerably younger than he. They began to do their important work late in Coon's life, and really started their careers after his major work on the European races had been published. They didn't seem to overlap much. Is this an accurate statement? Also, it mentions work of Boas, but Boas died 20 years before Coon published his 1962 work on races. Again, this needs more material so we understand more about the issues. --Parkwells (talk) 01:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is not a soapbox, so I will list more concrete objections: Why do authors of this article want to refute Coon's racial ideas by a link at an academic debate that primarily concerns psychological differences among races? (14) What does it have in common with the "dismissing of race"? What we read in that article is Mr. Lieberman's yelling that since race doesn't exist, IQ differences among races also doesn't exist. But shouldn't we at first look at, if race really doesn't exist? Not speaking about that the debate full of well-known PC-stars also includes Mr. Loring Brace, a person with obvious mental problems, who himself classified human skulls into discrete groups corresponding with classical races (in an article ironically called "A Non-racial Craniofacial Perspective on Human Variation"), but passionately claims that race doesn't exist.

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/37649/1/1330820310_ftp.pdf

Why is it that here on Wikipedia opinions of people defending traditional racial classification are often refuted by a single link on a PC-study, while the article about race clearly shows that the debate by far isn't settled and in fact, the arguments against race can be easily refuted as well? Centrum99 (talk) 14:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Opening sentence of Coon's entry

It is pitifully biased and unfair to use as the opening paragraph that Coon was "an...anthropologist noted for books on race in which he proposed the superiority of Europeans". That is an oversimplification and to generalize about his career using what is, in contemporary discourse, an inflammatory and political statement, only belittles his career as a scientist. The "superiority" of certain or other races may have been an implication of his studies and writings, but he was an anthropologist first and foremostP, and people forget that pre-WWII, anthropology was the study of race. This was perfectly respectable and the norm at the highest levels of academia. All of this shifted radically with the wave of political correctness that swept campuses in the decades after the war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.15.238 (talk) 19:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not rewrite it so it makes more sense - refer to his time and ours.--Parkwells (talk) 17:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Apart from that it is highly arguable that it is even factually correct. "Superiority" is more or less being used as a weasel word here. What specifically did he believe that is supposed to amount to a belief in "superiority"? In the same way that James Watson apologising for his statement on race and intelligence by saying that Africans are not inferior to Europeans said nothing to repudiate the factual content of what he actually said the use of "superiority" in this article says nothing much about Coon's actual beliefs either, particularly in the context of an academic scholar. It is a rhetorical device.80.229.27.11 (talk) 01:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Coon was not a racist in the pejorative sense

I have a special claim to authority on this subject as I am Carleton Coon's son. I grew up with him. He firmly believed that race is a legitimate field of scientific inquiry, in that subspecies have evolved and that differences between them can affect not only normative physical features, but also behavior. He detested adversaries like Ashley Montagu and most of the Boas school that decided ex cathedra that race doesn't exist, and he could express himself quite strongly when he got on the subject. But he never agreed that racial stereotypes could legitimately be applied to individuals. In fact he prided himself on the fact that his friends and correspondents were distinguished representatives of all racial groups. Here's what he had to say in his article, "What is Race?", in the December, 1957 issue of the Atlantic Monthly:

"...in most if not all races men of superior intelligence are born from time to time. In the past it was rarely possible for many of them to meet and exchange ideas, and even in social situations where they were accepted, much of their individual brainpower was wasted. Thanks to the new techniques of transport and communication of our century, world-wide meetings of the intellectual elite of all races are becoming common. In them it has often been observed that the world's most intelligent men find it completely natural to forget about race, for the mutual stimulation of intellectual exchange creates in such a group a new level of equilibrium, in which looking alike is of no importance.

"It seems safe to predict that the frequent association of the world's top minds in various disciplines can turn out to be the equivalent of that step in biological evolution for which many have been waiting:the appearance of a new and superior race based on a new adaptation, not to a special physical environment, but to the need of solving special problems which men have themselves created. As it will be drawn from many races, no master-race behavior need be feared."

In other words, my father was an elitist but not a racist, not in the present pejorative sense. But how about that opening reference to "most if not all races"? I am quite confident, on the basis of my recollection of my discussions with him, that he did not mean to include all negroes, or Congoids, or sub-Saharan Africans, as a blanket category incapable of producing superior minds. Africa being the cradle, there is probably at least as much racial variation within the region as outside it, and generalizations about race within the region always troubled him. (I recall his commenting on the large cranial capacity of the Ibo, for example). I infer that his phrase "most if not all races" referred to subgroups, perhaps some very minor groups, not to any of his five major categories.

That last point is arguable but with the increasing homogenization of the global gene pool it may also be becoming moot. Race as a whole, however, will never become moot. In his passion for analyzing its particulars, my father was not behind his times. I feel confident that future generations will look back on the record and judge that he was ahead of them.

Carl Coon (talk) 11:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)