Background knowledge underpinning scientific racism

[ApostateAbe]

What makes some propositions more probable than others even when the direct evidence is equal? What makes a light in the sky more likely to be a street light than an outer space alien spacecraft, even if the shape of the light would follow just as much from an alien spacecraft as a streetlight? It is the principle of background knowledge. In Bayes' Theorem, it is the variable of "prior probability," and it is just as important as the probability that follows from direct evidence. It is the principle that is the basis for Carl Sagan's proverb: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." We don't have the habit of including prior probability in our definition of "evidence," so it may be habitually overlooked in our considerations of probability, but it is just as important (equal weight in Bayes' Theorem). In fact, prior probability is the only part of the equation that makes the claim of no objective God extremely probable. There is little direct evidence, one way or the other, but the hypothesis would be very much out of place from the confirmed patterns of observation.

So, debates about genetic racial variations in intelligence focus heavily on direct evidence (racial IQ gaps in many societies, transracial adoption studies, brain size correlations, national skin color and IQ correlation, and so on), but participants tend to overlook the point that genetic variations in intelligence are very much expected merely from background knowledge of human evolutionary history and evolutionary theory. The points are summarized as follows:

1. Human intelligence is a product of Darwinian evolution, and it increased relatively swiftly over the last two million years, with brain size increasing about 1 cubic centimeter every 3000 years and accelerating.
2. Human populations have split apart, with migrations out of Africa happening variously between 60,000 and 125,000 years ago.
3. As the end of the last ice age happened only 12,000 years ago, ancestral environments after the out-of-Africa migrations were various. Genetic variations followed.
4. Skin color is only one of many genetic racial variations that followed. There are phenotypic variations in every system of the human body--digestive system (adult lactose tolerance), immune system (epidemic resistances), skeletal system (bone density and geometry), muscular system (muscle mass), nervous system (brain size), circulatory system (blood types and blood pressure), respiratory system (lung volume), reproductive system (penis size), and endocrine system (testosterone and estrogen). In any physiological aspect where there are genetic variations WITHIN a race, there are also variations BETWEEN races.
5. Intelligence variations are highly genetically heritable within races, as established by studies of identical twins reared apart and other family pairings. Scientific estimates range from 40% to 80%.

Therefore, as the anthropologists Cochran and Harpending expressed it, "...the biological equality of human races and ethnic groups is not inevitable: In fact it's about as likely as a fistful of silver dollars all landing on edge when dropped."

And this is before looking at the direct evidence that I before alluded to. It means that the hypothesis of exactly equal genetic racial variations in intelligence is an extraordinary claim. It is not an impossible claim, but it has a steep hill to climb.

Underseer had an interesting argument a few days ago to counter the hypothesis of racial variations in brain size: China has had a historical pattern of killing its most intelligent people; therefore, if racial variations in intelligence were genetic, northeast Asians should be the dullest race. If values can be assigned to the premises of this argument so it is more than a hunch, then it would be a sound argument. If not, then still a valuable contribution to the debate (hypotheses should not be discouraged merely for being unproven). But, we should wonder: given sufficient strength of the values of such a pattern, why would it not work? What would stop humans from evolving in such a way? If the argument is true, then it would be a theoretical puzzler. Does the theory of evolution not apply to human beings? Is there an intrinsic power that prevents uncomfortable racial variations from following as normally expected from Darwinian selective pressures? Or can we easily shape human nature merely with our wishes?

 

[bilby]

Unless you can come up with a definitive genetic definition of what you mean by 'race' the whole thing is a non-starter.

I seriously doubt that you can.

What are the 'races' into which you divide humanity; and what are the specific genes that define those races?

How does the concept of 'race' make any sense in a world where there has never been an absolute barrier to interbreeding between populations?

People have been highly mobile for a very long time. If race meant anything prior to the development of agriculture, then it certainly doesn't any more.

Your whole argument fails before it starts, because it assumes that the categorisation scheme you are using represents something real - and that assumption is both unfounded, and implausible.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Unless you can come up with a definitive genetic definition of what you mean by 'race' the whole thing is a non-starter.

I seriously doubt that you can.

What are the 'races' into which you divide humanity; and what are the specific genes that define those races?

How does the concept of 'race' make any sense in a world where there has never been an absolute barrier to interbreeding between populations?

People have been highly mobile for a very long time. If race meant anything prior to the development of agriculture, then it certainly doesn't any more.

Your whole argument fails before it starts, because it assumes that the categorisation scheme you are using represents something real - and that assumption is both unfounded, and implausible.

I define "race" as "a population with genetic frequencies differing from the genetic frequencies of other populations within the same species, due to differing ancestral geography." It is an established principle of evolutionary biology, as the theory of evolution would be impossible without this pattern (speciation simply would never happen). A race should NOT be defined as discrete, so absolute barriers would have no place in any accurate model of races. Races do very often have admixture with their neighbors, and genetic frequencies are only frequencies, not absolutes. Ethnicities are likewise spectral, and we all learn at a young age the trouble of assigning absolute characteristics to each ethnicity.

 

[bilby]

Unless you can come up with a definitive genetic definition of what you mean by 'race' the whole thing is a non-starter.

I seriously doubt that you can.

What are the 'races' into which you divide humanity; and what are the specific genes that define those races?

How does the concept of 'race' make any sense in a world where there has never been an absolute barrier to interbreeding between populations?

People have been highly mobile for a very long time. If race meant anything prior to the development of agriculture, then it certainly doesn't any more.

Your whole argument fails before it starts, because it assumes that the categorisation scheme you are using represents something real - and that assumption is both unfounded, and implausible.

I define "race" as "a population with genetic frequencies differing from the genetic frequencies of other populations within the same species, due to differing ancestral geography." It is an established principle of evolutionary biology, as the theory of evolution would be impossible without this pattern (speciation simply would never happen). A race should NOT be defined as discrete, so absolute barriers would have no place in any accurate model of races. Races do very often have admixture with their neighbors, and genetic frequencies are only frequencies, not absolutes. Ethnicities are likewise spectral, and we all learn at a young age the trouble of assigning absolute characteristics to each ethnicity.

So in other words, your definition is wooly as fuck, and based on the assumption of, rather than the observation of or measurement of, genetic differences. How can you draw lines between races based on such a poor definition?

The best you can do with this crap is to say that races (as you have defined them) might well exist in humans. But that if they do, we won't have any useful way to tell, or to assign any individuals to those races. And even if we find a good proxy for genetics - say, for example, birthplace - the division of people in this way will be completely useless, and of only passing academic interest. Certainly for any practical purpose, there is almost certain to be a better way to categorise people.

If you want basketballers, you look for tall, athletic individuals. You will get a much better result by doing this than by instead looking for black Americans - even though many of the world's best ball players happen to be black Americans.

If you want brain surgeons, you look for intelligent people with delicate and dexterous hands; If you want test pilots, you look for people with quick reaction times and low risk-aversion; If you want accountants you look for people with strong mathematical skills who are attentive to detail.

No matter what you want, you are going to get a sub-optimal outcome by looking at 'race', rather than just measuring the desired characteristics themselves. Even if you can be confident that you have correctly drawn the lines between 'races' - which given the lack of definition in your definition, seems implausible in the extreme.

 

[ApostateAbe]

I don't disagree as much as you may expect. Because the differences between races are objective but blurry, and because there are typically more direct measurements of anything associated with race, race really does not have much place in law or public policy, if any. The concept of race is only useful for making good theoretical sense of human society. It is an essential component, though not the only component, I believe, for understanding why racial inequalities exist in the world. Both good and evil come out of such an accurate understanding. When it becomes part of politics, it is more often evil.

 

[Jokodo]

What makes some propositions more probable than others even when the direct evidence is equal? What makes a light in the sky more likely to be a street light than an outer space alien spacecraft, even if the shape of the light would follow just as much from an alien spacecraft as a streetlight? It is the principle of background knowledge. In Bayes' Theorem, it is the variable of "prior probability," and it is just as important as the probability that follows from direct evidence. It is the principle that is the basis for Carl Sagan's proverb: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." We don't have the habit of including prior probability in our definition of "evidence," so it may be habitually overlooked in our considerations of probability, but it is just as important (equal weight in Bayes' Theorem). In fact, prior probability is the only part of the equation that makes the claim of no objective God extremely probable. There is little direct evidence, one way or the other, but the hypothesis would be very much out of place from the confirmed patterns of observation.

So, debates about genetic racial variations in intelligence focus heavily on direct evidence (racial IQ gaps in many societies, transracial adoption studies, brain size correlations, national skin color and IQ correlation, and so on), but participants tend to overlook the point that genetic variations in intelligence are very much expected merely from background knowledge of human evolutionary history and evolutionary theory. The points are summarized as follows:

1. Human intelligence is a product of Darwinian evolution, and it increased relatively swiftly over the last two million years, with brain size increasing about 1 cubic centimeter every 3000 years and accelerating.
2. Human populations have split apart, with migrations out of Africa happening variously between 60,000 and 125,000 years ago.
3. As the end of the last ice age happened only 12,000 years ago, ancestral environments after the out-of-Africa migrations were various. Genetic variations followed.
4. Skin color is only one of many genetic racial variations that followed. There are phenotypic variations in every system of the human body--digestive system (adult lactose tolerance), immune system (epidemic resistances), skeletal system (bone density and geometry), muscular system (muscle mass), nervous system (brain size), circulatory system (blood types and blood pressure), respiratory system (lung volume), reproductive system (penis size), and endocrine system (testosterone and estrogen). In any physiological aspect where there are genetic variations WITHIN a race, there are also variations BETWEEN races.
5. Intelligence variations are highly genetically heritable within races, as established by studies of identical twins reared apart and other family pairings. Scientific estimates range from 40% to 80%.

Therefore, as the anthropologists Cochran and Harpending expressed it, "...the biological equality of human races and ethnic groups is not inevitable: In fact it's about as likely as a fistful of silver dollars all landing on edge when dropped."

And this is before looking at the direct evidence that I before alluded to. It means that the hypothesis of exactly equal genetic racial variations in intelligence is an extraordinary claim. It is not an impossible claim, but it has a steep hill to climb.

Underseer had an interesting argument a few days ago to counter the hypothesis of racial variations in brain size: China has had a historical pattern of killing its most intelligent people; therefore, if racial variations in intelligence were genetic, northeast Asians should be the dullest race. If values can be assigned to the premises of this argument so it is more than a hunch, then it would be a sound argument. If not, then still a valuable contribution to the debate (hypotheses should not be discouraged merely for being unproven). But, we should wonder: given sufficient strength of the values of such a pattern, why would it not work? What would stop humans from evolving in such a way? If the argument is true, then it would be a theoretical puzzler. Does the theory of evolution not apply to human beings? Is there an intrinsic power that prevents uncomfortable racial variations from following as normally expected from Darwinian selective pressures? Or can we easily shape human nature merely with our wishes?

Your #1 is actually not entirely true. It's true that over the course of hominin evolution, brain size has been rapidly increasing, but that trend has stalled for the last 100,000+ years. The Cro-Magnons 40,000 had larger brains than humans today, both in absolute and relative terms; our brains today are pretty much the same as those of primitive h.s. and Neanderthals 150,000 years ago.

#2 and #3 are made less relevant by the fact that there's as much variation within Africa, and generally that most variation is driven by genetic drift, not selection.

#4 pretty much shows the opposite of what you want it to show - no two of these variations pattern together, so if there's anything we can conclude from this it is that, to the extent that innate cognate abilities vary by ancestral geography, they're not going to pattern with skin color, or your ill-defined "races".

#5 is irrelevant. If you had a society where calorie availability greatly varies over the year, I'm sure you'd find that within babies born in October, birthweight shows a strong correlation with their parents' birthweight, when known. You'll also find that birthweight of babies born in October is much higher on average than birthweight of babies born in March (assuming food is scarcest during the Northern hemisphere winter). This does not suggest genetic factors for the intergroup variation.

 

[ApostateAbe]

What makes some propositions more probable than others even when the direct evidence is equal? What makes a light in the sky more likely to be a street light than an outer space alien spacecraft, even if the shape of the light would follow just as much from an alien spacecraft as a streetlight? It is the principle of background knowledge. In Bayes' Theorem, it is the variable of "prior probability," and it is just as important as the probability that follows from direct evidence. It is the principle that is the basis for Carl Sagan's proverb: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." We don't have the habit of including prior probability in our definition of "evidence," so it may be habitually overlooked in our considerations of probability, but it is just as important (equal weight in Bayes' Theorem). In fact, prior probability is the only part of the equation that makes the claim of no objective God extremely probable. There is little direct evidence, one way or the other, but the hypothesis would be very much out of place from the confirmed patterns of observation.

So, debates about genetic racial variations in intelligence focus heavily on direct evidence (racial IQ gaps in many societies, transracial adoption studies, brain size correlations, national skin color and IQ correlation, and so on), but participants tend to overlook the point that genetic variations in intelligence are very much expected merely from background knowledge of human evolutionary history and evolutionary theory. The points are summarized as follows:

1. Human intelligence is a product of Darwinian evolution, and it increased relatively swiftly over the last two million years, with brain size increasing about 1 cubic centimeter every 3000 years and accelerating.
2. Human populations have split apart, with migrations out of Africa happening variously between 60,000 and 125,000 years ago.
3. As the end of the last ice age happened only 12,000 years ago, ancestral environments after the out-of-Africa migrations were various. Genetic variations followed.
4. Skin color is only one of many genetic racial variations that followed. There are phenotypic variations in every system of the human body--digestive system (adult lactose tolerance), immune system (epidemic resistances), skeletal system (bone density and geometry), muscular system (muscle mass), nervous system (brain size), circulatory system (blood types and blood pressure), respiratory system (lung volume), reproductive system (penis size), and endocrine system (testosterone and estrogen). In any physiological aspect where there are genetic variations WITHIN a race, there are also variations BETWEEN races.
5. Intelligence variations are highly genetically heritable within races, as established by studies of identical twins reared apart and other family pairings. Scientific estimates range from 40% to 80%.

Therefore, as the anthropologists Cochran and Harpending expressed it, "...the biological equality of human races and ethnic groups is not inevitable: In fact it's about as likely as a fistful of silver dollars all landing on edge when dropped."

And this is before looking at the direct evidence that I before alluded to. It means that the hypothesis of exactly equal genetic racial variations in intelligence is an extraordinary claim. It is not an impossible claim, but it has a steep hill to climb.

Underseer had an interesting argument a few days ago to counter the hypothesis of racial variations in brain size: China has had a historical pattern of killing its most intelligent people; therefore, if racial variations in intelligence were genetic, northeast Asians should be the dullest race. If values can be assigned to the premises of this argument so it is more than a hunch, then it would be a sound argument. If not, then still a valuable contribution to the debate (hypotheses should not be discouraged merely for being unproven). But, we should wonder: given sufficient strength of the values of such a pattern, why would it not work? What would stop humans from evolving in such a way? If the argument is true, then it would be a theoretical puzzler. Does the theory of evolution not apply to human beings? Is there an intrinsic power that prevents uncomfortable racial variations from following as normally expected from Darwinian selective pressures? Or can we easily shape human nature merely with our wishes?

Your #1 is actually not entirely true. It's true that over the course of hominin evolution, brain size has been rapidly increasing, but that trend has stalled for the last 100,000+ years. The Cro-Magnons 40,000 had larger brains than humans today, both in absolute and relative terms; our brains today are pretty much the same as those of primitive h.s. and Neanderthals 150,000 years ago.

#2 and #3 are made less relevant by the fact that there's as much variation within Africa, and generally that most variation is driven by genetic drift, not selection.

#4 pretty much shows the opposite of what you want it to show - no two of these variations pattern together, so if there's anything we can conclude from this it is that, to the extent that innate cognate abilities vary by ancestral geography, they're not going to pattern with skin color, or your ill-defined "races".

#5 is irrelevant. If you had a society where calorie availability greatly varies over the year, I'm sure you'd find that within babies born in October, birthweight shows a strong correlation with their parents' birthweight, when known. You'll also find that birthweight of babies born in October is much higher on average than birthweight of babies born in March (assuming food is scarcest during the Northern hemisphere winter). This does not suggest genetic factors for the intergroup variation.

You seem to be introducing many irrelevant points. Short-term evolution is irrelevant to the pattern of long-term evolution. The level of genetic variation within Africa is irrelevant to the level of genetic variation among races generally. Genetic drift of non-coding DNA is irrelevant to phenotypic evolution. Inconsistent racial boundaries are not relevant if it still means non-random racial phenotypes among races. And the direct arguments are irrelevant to the arguments about the background knowledge on the table. All of the points are worthy of discussion, but, as related to the arguments on the table, they seem to be merely distractions.

 

[Jokodo]

Your #1 is actually not entirely true. It's true that over the course of hominin evolution, brain size has been rapidly increasing, but that trend has stalled for the last 100,000+ years. The Cro-Magnons 40,000 had larger brains than humans today, both in absolute and relative terms; our brains today are pretty much the same as those of primitive h.s. and Neanderthals 150,000 years ago.

#2 and #3 are made less relevant by the fact that there's as much variation within Africa, and generally that most variation is driven by genetic drift, not selection.

#4 pretty much shows the opposite of what you want it to show - no two of these variations pattern together, so if there's anything we can conclude from this it is that, to the extent that innate cognate abilities vary by ancestral geography, they're not going to pattern with skin color, or your ill-defined "races".

#5 is irrelevant. If you had a society where calorie availability greatly varies over the year, I'm sure you'd find that within babies born in October, birthweight shows a strong correlation with their parents' birthweight, when known. You'll also find that birthweight of babies born in October is much higher on average than birthweight of babies born in March (assuming food is scarcest during the Northern hemisphere winter). This does not suggest genetic factors for the intergroup variation.

You seem to be introducing many irrelevant points. Short-term evolution is irrelevant to the pattern of long-term evolution. The level of genetic variation within Africa is irrelevant to the level of genetic variation among races generally. Genetic drift of non-coding DNA is irrelevant to phenotypic evolution. Inconsistent racial boundaries are not relevant if it still means non-random racial phenotypes among races. And the direct arguments are irrelevant to the arguments about the background knowledge on the table. All of the points are worthy of discussion, but, as related to the arguments on the table, they seem to be merely distractions.

To the contrary, the patterns of long-term evolution are irrelevant to racial differentiation when the out-of-Africa migrations only happened on the short timescales. My objections are not distractions, they just show that your desired conclusion doesn't follow from your premises without a host of further, unstated assumptions.

 

[ApostateAbe]

You seem to be introducing many irrelevant points. Short-term evolution is irrelevant to the pattern of long-term evolution. The level of genetic variation within Africa is irrelevant to the level of genetic variation among races generally. Genetic drift of non-coding DNA is irrelevant to phenotypic evolution. Inconsistent racial boundaries are not relevant if it still means non-random racial phenotypes among races. And the direct arguments are irrelevant to the arguments about the background knowledge on the table. All of the points are worthy of discussion, but, as related to the arguments on the table, they seem to be merely distractions.

To the contrary, the patterns of long-term evolution are irrelevant to racial differentiation when the out-of-Africa migrations only happened on the short timescales. My objections are not distractions, they just show that your desired conclusion doesn't follow from your premises without a host of further, unstated assumptions.

OK, the background knowledge is that human intelligence has come about through Darwinian natural selection, which means there could be racial variations in intelligence. On the whole, if we combine the races together, in the last hundred thousand years, it could increasing, it could be decreasing, it could be staying the same, but it doesn't matter. I could argue against the point that brain size has been decreasing (I really do disagree with it or at least with the certainty of it), but it would be an argument for another time, no relevance here.

 

[ApostateAbe]

I said, "Underseer had an interesting argument a few days ago to counter the hypothesis of racial variations in brain size..." but I should have said, "Underseer had an interesting argument a few days ago to counter the hypothesis of genetic racial variations in intelligence..." I didn't mean to misrepresent Underseer.

 

[Jokodo]

To the contrary, the patterns of long-term evolution are irrelevant to racial differentiation when the out-of-Africa migrations only happened on the short timescales. My objections are not distractions, they just show that your desired conclusion doesn't follow from your premises without a host of further, unstated assumptions.

OK, the background knowledge is that human intelligence has come about through Darwinian natural selection, which means there could be racial variations in intelligence. On the whole, if we combine the races together, in the last hundred thousand years, it could increasing, it could be decreasing, it could be staying the same, but it doesn't matter. I could argue against the point that brain size has been decreasing (I really do disagree with it or at least with the certainty of it), but it would be an argument for another time, no relevance here.

Of course it matters. The fact that brain sizes increased drastically between 2M and 100k years ago strongly that some factor or factors correlating with brain size was positively selected for, and it's a reasonable assumption that that included selection for intelligence. But when brain size growth has practically stalled during exactly the time when humans, according to you, split into different races, you can't use past brain growth as an argument for ongoing (and strongly environment-depenent) selection for intelligence.

That brain sizes (or more precisely: cranium capacities) have slightly decreased compared to the Cro-Magnon is a fact. We can disagree about the interpretation, but the fact remains. Though if you think it's irrelevant, you shouldn't be using brain size as an argument in the first place.

 

[ApostateAbe]

OK, the background knowledge is that human intelligence has come about through Darwinian natural selection, which means there could be racial variations in intelligence. On the whole, if we combine the races together, in the last hundred thousand years, it could increasing, it could be decreasing, it could be staying the same, but it doesn't matter. I could argue against the point that brain size has been decreasing (I really do disagree with it or at least with the certainty of it), but it would be an argument for another time, no relevance here.

Of course it matters. The fact that brain sizes increased drastically between 2M and 100k years ago strongly that some factor or factors correlating with brain size was positively selected for, and it's a reasonable assumption that that included selection for intelligence. But when brain size growth has practically stalled during exactly the time when humans, according to you, split into different races, you can't use past brain growth as an argument for ongoing (and strongly environment-depenent) selection for intelligence.

That brain sizes (or more precisely: cranium capacities) have slightly decreased compared to the Cro-Magnon is a fact. We can disagree about the interpretation, but the fact remains. Though if you think it's irrelevant, you shouldn't be using brain size as an argument in the first place.

Great argument for another thread. Selection pressures for intelligence stopped happening when the races split, therefore it is implausible that there are genetic racial variations in intelligence, or something like that.

 

[Jokodo]

Of course it matters. The fact that brain sizes increased drastically between 2M and 100k years ago strongly that some factor or factors correlating with brain size was positively selected for, and it's a reasonable assumption that that included selection for intelligence. But when brain size growth has practically stalled during exactly the time when humans, according to you, split into different races, you can't use past brain growth as an argument for ongoing (and strongly environment-depenent) selection for intelligence.

That brain sizes (or more precisely: cranium capacities) have slightly decreased compared to the Cro-Magnon is a fact. We can disagree about the interpretation, but the fact remains. Though if you think it's irrelevant, you shouldn't be using brain size as an argument in the first place.

Great argument for another thread. Selection pressures for intelligence stopped happening when the races split, therefore it is implausible that there are genetic racial variations in intelligence, or something like that.

Reading comprehension fail.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Jokodo, I would be happy to do my best to make sense of it. The proposed recent decrease in human brain size does not seem to relate so much to the plausibility of racial variations in intelligence. If we hold that assumption, then it would not follow that every race decreases in brain size at the same rate. To keep this in terms of theory, maybe you have a hypothesis for the evolutionary reason why brain growth "practically stalled." I thought maybe it was because selection pressures somehow stopped, but I should let you explain.

 

[Jokodo]

Jokodo, I would be happy to do my best to make sense of it. The proposed recent decrease in human brain size does not seem to relate so much to the plausibility of racial variations in intelligence.

Arguably it doesn't. But then neither does the previous increase in brain size.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Jokodo, I would be happy to do my best to make sense of it. The proposed recent decrease in human brain size does not seem to relate so much to the plausibility of racial variations in intelligence.

Arguably it doesn't. But then neither does the previous increase in brain size.

I claim that changes in brain size (in any direction) driven by evolutionary processes are relevant for showing the plausibility of racial variations in intelligence. Just one piece of the puzzle but a relevant one. If evolution had nothing to do with intelligence, then it would be a problem.

 

[Bronzeage]

Unless you can come up with a definitive genetic definition of what you mean by 'race' the whole thing is a non-starter.

I seriously doubt that you can.

What are the 'races' into which you divide humanity; and what are the specific genes that define those races?

How does the concept of 'race' make any sense in a world where there has never been an absolute barrier to interbreeding between populations?

People have been highly mobile for a very long time. If race meant anything prior to the development of agriculture, then it certainly doesn't any more.

Your whole argument fails before it starts, because it assumes that the categorisation scheme you are using represents something real - and that assumption is both unfounded, and implausible.

I define "race" as "a population with genetic frequencies differing from the genetic frequencies of other populations within the same species, due to differing ancestral geography." It is an established principle of evolutionary biology, as the theory of evolution would be impossible without this pattern (speciation simply would never happen). A race should NOT be defined as discrete, so absolute barriers would have no place in any accurate model of races. Races do very often have admixture with their neighbors, and genetic frequencies are only frequencies, not absolutes. Ethnicities are likewise spectral, and we all learn at a young age the trouble of assigning absolute characteristics to each ethnicity.

What is the hierarchy of races, based on "genetic frequencies"? Which races are more advanced than others.

 

[ApostateAbe]

I define "race" as "a population with genetic frequencies differing from the genetic frequencies of other populations within the same species, due to differing ancestral geography." It is an established principle of evolutionary biology, as the theory of evolution would be impossible without this pattern (speciation simply would never happen). A race should NOT be defined as discrete, so absolute barriers would have no place in any accurate model of races. Races do very often have admixture with their neighbors, and genetic frequencies are only frequencies, not absolutes. Ethnicities are likewise spectral, and we all learn at a young age the trouble of assigning absolute characteristics to each ethnicity.

What is the hierarchy of races, based on "genetic frequencies"? Which races are more advanced than others.

There is no hierarchy of races, except in our own personal value judgments. And no race is further along the evolutionary path than any other race.

 

[Bronzeage]

What is the hierarchy of races, based on "genetic frequencies"? Which races are more advanced than others.

There is no hierarchy of races, except in our own personal value judgments. And no race is further along the evolutionary path than any other race.

Then what is the point? Is there a difference in the races or not? You keep trying to discuss scientific racism, but now you say it's a value judgment and not measurable.

A value judgment which is based on something unquantifiable is not scientific.

 

[ApostateAbe]

There is no hierarchy of races, except in our own personal value judgments. And no race is further along the evolutionary path than any other race.

Then what is the point? Is there a difference in the races or not? You keep trying to discuss scientific racism, but now you say it's a value judgment and not measurable.

A value judgment which is based on something unquantifiable is not scientific.

Yes, there are difference between the races. No, there is no objective hierarchy among the races.