Richard Dawkins vs. Bill Nye on race

[ApostateAbe]

Richard Dawkins (the most respected evolutionary biologist alive) vs. Bill Nye (the most popular mechanical engineer alive) on race. Go to this link to read the relevant excerpt from "The Ancestor's Tale":

 

[ApostateAbe]

 

[J842P]

Richard Dawkins (the most respected evolutionary biologist alive) vs. Bill Nye (the most popular mechanical engineer alive) on race. Go to this link to read the relevant excerpt from "The Ancestor's Tale":

Dawkins' stature in evolutionary biology is being overstated here. He's a popularizer, like Sagan, but Sagan had a more substantive research career, which is really how your worth should be measured - and is measured - in the field.

Be that as it may, I do agree with Dawkins regarding race. The idea that race is a useless concept biologically is a meme in which needs to be put to rest.

 

[Juma]

Richard Dawkins (the most respected evolutionary biologist alive) vs. Bill Nye (the most popular mechanical engineer alive) on race. Go to this link to read the relevant excerpt from "The Ancestor's Tale":

Dawkins' stature in evolutionary biology is being overstated here. He's a popularizer, like Sagan, but Sagan had a more substantive research career, which is really how your worth should be measured - and is measured - in the field.

Be that as it may, I do agree with Dawkins regarding race. The idea that race is a useless concept biologically is a meme in which needs to be put to rest.

Exactly what is it that you think Dawkins says about race?

I think they talk about different things. Nye is talking about the common naiv concept and Dawkins talks about the possibility of a biological valid concept. (Which would look very different from the every day use of the word)

 

[bigfield]

Be that as it may, I do agree with Dawkins regarding race. The idea that race is a useless concept biologically is a meme in which needs to be put to rest.

The problem with the racial classifications we commonly use is that they have no scientific basis.

Instead of 'race is only a human construct', a better characterisation would be 'race is a pseudoscientific construct' or 'racial classifications are not based on sound science'. In which case Nye and Dawkins would probably be in agreement.

 

[ronburgundy]

Be that as it may, I do agree with Dawkins regarding race. The idea that race is a useless concept biologically is a meme in which needs to be put to rest.

The problem with the racial classifications we commonly use is that they have no scientific basis.

Instead of 'race is only a human construct', a better characterisation would be 'race is a pseudoscientific construct' or 'racial classifications are not based on sound science'. In which case Nye and Dawkins would probably be in agreement.

Your characterization implies that there is zero covariance between who is placed in the same or different racial sub-categories under the common approach and who would be in different or same sub-categories under a scientifically valid biological approach. IOW, the current categorization doesn't match a biological one any better than if all people were just randomly assigned a sub-category.

In more concrete terms, it assumes that two black men from Alabama are no more likely to be genetically similar to each other than either is to a white man from Alabama.

Do you think that is a defensible assumption?

If we removed information that coded for skin color, and gave geneticists the DNA of all Americans categorized as "white" or "black" under the common rubric, would they be able to do better than chance at categorizing the DNA into the 2 subgroups?

 

[Playball40]

The problem with the racial classifications we commonly use is that they have no scientific basis.

Instead of 'race is only a human construct', a better characterisation would be 'race is a pseudoscientific construct' or 'racial classifications are not based on sound science'. In which case Nye and Dawkins would probably be in agreement.

Your characterization implies that there is zero covariance between who is placed in the same or different racial sub-categories under the common approach and who would be in different or same sub-categories under a scientifically valid biological approach. IOW, the current categorization doesn't match a biological one any better than if all people were just randomly assigned a sub-category.

In more concrete terms, it assumes that two black men from Alabama are no more likely to be genetically similar to each other than either is to a white man from Alabama.

Do you think that is a defensible assumption?

If we removed information that coded for skin color, and gave geneticists the DNA of all Americans categorized as "white" or "black" under the common rubric, would they be able to do better than chance at categorizing the DNA into the 2 subgroups?

There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.

There are obvious physical differences between populations living in different geographic areas of the world. Some of these differences are strongly inherited and others, such as body size and shape, are strongly influenced by nutrition, way of life, and other aspects of the environment. Genetic differences between populations commonly consist of differences in the frequencies of all inherited traits, including those that are environmentally malleable.

http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/

 

[Bomb#20]

Dawkins' stature in evolutionary biology is being overstated here. He's a popularizer, like Sagan, but Sagan had a more substantive research career, which is really how your worth should be measured - and is measured - in the field.

Be that as it may, I do agree with Dawkins regarding race. The idea that race is a useless concept biologically is a meme in which needs to be put to rest.

Exactly what is it that you think Dawkins says about race?

"We can happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes in forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn't mean that race is of `virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance'. This is Edward's* point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance."

-The Ancestor's Tale​

(* A. W. F. Edwards, the author of Human Genetic Diversity: Lewontin's Fallacy)

I think they talk about different things. Nye is talking about the common naiv concept and Dawkins talks about the possibility of a biological valid concept. (Which would look very different from the every day use of the word)

What do you regard as the principle differences between "every day use of the word"/"the common naive concept" and a biologically valid concept?

 

[ronburgundy]

Your characterization implies that there is zero covariance between who is placed in the same or different racial sub-categories under the common approach and who would be in different or same sub-categories under a scientifically valid biological approach. IOW, the current categorization doesn't match a biological one any better than if all people were just randomly assigned a sub-category.

In more concrete terms, it assumes that two black men from Alabama are no more likely to be genetically similar to each other than either is to a white man from Alabama.

Do you think that is a defensible assumption?

If we removed information that coded for skin color, and gave geneticists the DNA of all Americans categorized as "white" or "black" under the common rubric, would they be able to do better than chance at categorizing the DNA into the 2 subgroups?

There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.

There are obvious physical differences between populations living in different geographic areas of the world. Some of these differences are strongly inherited and others, such as body size and shape, are strongly influenced by nutrition, way of life, and other aspects of the environment. Genetic differences between populations commonly consist of differences in the frequencies of all inherited traits, including those that are environmentally malleable.

http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/

That only says that the notion of racial purity is invalid, for the same reason that the notion categorical purity is generally invalid for nearly all categorizations. Like virtually all categories, racial categories are not "pure", meaning there is large variation among the things the fall into each category and many instances that do not fall clearly into only a single category. Tables and chairs are meaningful categories that can be defined by objective properties. Yet they share more in common than differences and there is large variance in the members of each category with some instances belonging equally to both.

 

[Trausti]

http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/

They haven't revised their position statement in 20 years? The human genome was not sequenced until 2003. Surely, some update is necessary. The bounty of genetic difference uncovered since should make any reasonable observer consider revision. We didn't learn until 2010 that all non-Sub Saharan populations carry 2-4% Neanderthal DNA. Then there's the contribution of Denisovan DNA to East Asian populations. Then there's the inevitable genetic differences that occurs when a once homogeneous population is separated geographically and disparate environmental and cultural pressures arise - why does your race or ethnicity make you more or less susceptible to disease? Or strongly correlate with IQ? A statement that we're all 99% the same is bunk. Humans are animals. It seems a bit of cognitive dissonance to accept evolution and natural selection as true but deny that it applies to humans.

 

[skepticalbip]

......snip.....

If we removed information that coded for skin color, and gave geneticists the DNA of all Americans categorized as "white" or "black" under the common rubric, would they be able to do better than chance at categorizing the DNA into the 2 subgroups?

Maybe not but, if a forensic anthropologist were given a thousand skulls to examine, they likely could.

 

[Bomb#20]

There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.

There are obvious physical differences between populations living in different geographic areas of the world. Some of these differences are strongly inherited and others, such as body size and shape, are strongly influenced by nutrition, way of life, and other aspects of the environment. Genetic differences between populations commonly consist of differences in the frequencies of all inherited traits, including those that are environmentally malleable.

http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/

The AAPA wrote that drivel for the same reason this thread is in the "Pseudoscience" forum in spite of the absence of anything pseudoscientific in the OP, the same reason Lewontin wrote his infamous paper, and the same reason his paper became the theoretical backing of so many people's opinions about this topic: because, as Dawkins said of Lewontin, they are known for the strength of their political convictions and their weakness for dragging them into science at every possible opportunity.

The AAPA are committing pious fraud by pretending the issue in dispute is "pure races" rather than "races". They are committing a second pious fraud by pretending "genetically homogenous populations" is a sense of "pure races", in the minds of that subset of the people the AAPA are trying to discredit who believe in "pure races". And they are committing intellectual suicide by pretending "genetically homogenous populations do not exist" is even a meaningful statement in the first place, as though genetic homogeneity were somehow a yes/no variable rather than a matter of degree.

So much for the first paragraph. As for the second paragraph, it's poorly written and it's not clear what the AAPA intended to say. What are inherited traits that are environmentally malleable? Prima facie, they appear to be asserting the inheritance of acquired characteristics. But it's unlikely they really meant to be agreeing with Lamarck and Lysenko.

 

[Bomb#20]

Be that as it may, I do agree with Dawkins regarding race. The idea that race is a useless concept biologically is a meme in which needs to be put to rest.

The problem with the racial classifications we commonly use is that they have no scientific basis.

Whom besides yourself are you calling "we", and which racial classifications do you and they commonly use?

Instead of 'race is only a human construct', a better characterisation would be 'race is a pseudoscientific construct' or 'racial classifications are not based on sound science'.

To be precise, an awful lot of racial classifications are not based on sound science, and a high proportion of the arguments for the existence of races are pseudoscience, and every argument against the existence of races is pseudoscience.

 

[bilby]

The problem with the racial classifications we commonly use is that they have no scientific basis.

Instead of 'race is only a human construct', a better characterisation would be 'race is a pseudoscientific construct' or 'racial classifications are not based on sound science'. In which case Nye and Dawkins would probably be in agreement.

Your characterization implies that there is zero covariance between who is placed in the same or different racial sub-categories under the common approach and who would be in different or same sub-categories under a scientifically valid biological approach. IOW, the current categorization doesn't match a biological one any better than if all people were just randomly assigned a sub-category.

In more concrete terms, it assumes that two black men from Alabama are no more likely to be genetically similar to each other than either is to a white man from Alabama.

Do you think that is a defensible assumption?

If we removed information that coded for skin color, and gave geneticists the DNA of all Americans categorized as "white" or "black" under the common rubric, would they be able to do better than chance at categorizing the DNA into the 2 subgroups?

Your assumption that there would be only two 'subgroups' as a result of such a blind analysis is deeply flawed.

There are literally millions of ways to divide people into groups based on their genetic makeup; the idea that the existing concept of race, arrived at by pseudoscientific means, would map well enough to any fact-based genetic differences is laughably implausible.

Sure, it might turn out that the poorly informed guesses of our forebears happened to match reality by pure luck.

But you would be crazy to bet on it.

 

[Trausti]

There are literally millions of ways to divide people into groups based on their genetic makeup; the idea that the existing concept of race, arrived at by pseudoscientific means, would map well enough to any fact-based genetic differences is laughably implausible.

So if there's a crime and all the cops have is a bit of DNA/blood from the suspect, ya don't think they could determine the race of the suspect? You really think that? 23andMe?

 

[ApostateAbe]

http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/

They haven't revised their position statement in 20 years? The human genome was not sequenced until 2003. Surely, some update is necessary. The bounty of genetic difference uncovered since should make any reasonable observer consider revision. We didn't learn until 2010 that all non-Sub Saharan populations carry 2-4% Neanderthal DNA. Then there's the contribution of Denisovan DNA to East Asian populations. Then there's the inevitable genetic differences that occurs when a once homogeneous population is separated geographically and disparate environmental and cultural pressures arise - why does your race or ethnicity make you more or less susceptible to disease? Or strongly correlate with IQ? A statement that we're all 99% the same is bunk. Humans are animals. It seems a bit of cognitive dissonance to accept evolution and natural selection as true but deny that it applies to humans.

The statement needs revision, and it always needed revision, but not for being false. It needs revision for being misleading. It denies only of strawman of race, not race as understood among biologists for hundreds of years nor among modern racial hereditarians in psychology and medicine. It is designed for a political purpose, not designed to communicate anything scientifically useful. Scientifically, it muddles the racial issues further by ignoring the singular coherent concept of race that has always been mainstream among evolutionary biologists, it implicitly accepts Lewontin's fallacy, and it has helped to mislead a generation of scientists.

 

[Bomb#20]

Your assumption that there would be only two 'subgroups' as a result of such a blind analysis is deeply flawed.

There are literally millions of ways to divide people into groups based on their genetic makeup; the idea that the existing concept of race, arrived at by pseudoscientific means, would map well enough to any fact-based genetic differences is laughably implausible.

Sure, it might turn out that the poorly informed guesses of our forebears happened to match reality by pure luck.

But you would be crazy to bet on it.

So what scientific conclusion do you draw from the above line of inference? Do you

A) conclude that it would be sensible to construct a fact-based division of people into groups derived from measured genetic differences, compare it to the existing concept of race, and if it maps poorly then take that as evidence against the reality of races, whereas if it maps well then have a good belly-laugh at the stupidity of the newly rich people who bet that there'd be a match, who most plausibly got rich only by dumb luck, for having been crazy enough to rely on the poorly informed guesses of our forebears,

or B) conclude that it would be sensible to construct a fact-based division of people into groups derived from measured genetic differences, compare it to the existing concept of race, and if it maps poorly then take that as evidence against the reality of races, whereas if it maps well then discard the premise that the existing concept of race was arrived at by pseudoscientific means, and then try to figure out how our forebears knew, and if you can't make sense of it then decide you aren't as much an expert on the topic as you thought you were and ask the people who bet that there'd be a match to explain how biological systematics is done,

or C) conclude that it is unnecessary to construct a fact-based division of people into groups derived from measured genetic differences and compare it to the existing concept of race because you already know they're not going to map well

?

 

[Juma]

There are literally millions of ways to divide people into groups based on their genetic makeup; the idea that the existing concept of race, arrived at by pseudoscientific means, would map well enough to any fact-based genetic differences is laughably implausible.

So if there's a crime and all the cops have is a bit of DNA/blood from the suspect, ya don't think they could determine the race of the suspect? You really think that? 23andMe?

What is your point?

 

[Bomb#20]

There are literally millions of ways to divide people into groups based on their genetic makeup; the idea that the existing concept of race, arrived at by pseudoscientific means, would map well enough to any fact-based genetic differences is laughably implausible.

So if there's a crime and all the cops have is a bit of DNA/blood from the suspect, ya don't think they could determine the race of the suspect? You really think that? 23andMe?

What is your point?

Well, it sure looks like his point is that the existing concept of race pretty obviously maps well enough to some fact-based genetic differences for 23andMe and the cops to identify someone's race by examining his or her DNA. The larger point is presumably to nominate that level of mapping accuracy as a candidate for the "map well enough" standard used to judge whether the existing concept of race is pseudoscience.

If race denialists aren't willing to accept that as the standard, then they need to either nominate a different candidate or else admit that it's the race denialists and not the rest of us who are practicing pseudoscience.

 

[ApostateAbe]

There are literally millions of ways to divide people into groups based on their genetic makeup; the idea that the existing concept of race, arrived at by pseudoscientific means, would map well enough to any fact-based genetic differences is laughably implausible.

So if there's a crime and all the cops have is a bit of DNA/blood from the suspect, ya don't think they could determine the race of the suspect? You really think that? 23andMe?

What is your point?

Well, it sure looks like his point is that the existing concept of race pretty obviously maps well enough to some fact-based genetic differences for 23andMe and the cops to identify someone's race by examining his or her DNA. The larger point is presumably to nominate that level of mapping accuracy as a candidate for the "map well enough" standard used to judge whether the existing concept of race is pseudoscience.

If race denialists aren't willing to accept that as the standard, then they need to either nominate a different candidate or else admit that it's the race denialists and not the rest of us who are practicing pseudoscience.

I fully agree, and you express it well.