Bill Nye and Ken Ham agree: races do not exist. But all for the wrong reasons.

[J842P]

Do you have a problem with the dictionary?

Anyway, humans are classified in the family Hominidae, which is the Great Apes. Humans are apes. Humans are also primates, since all apes are primates.

Humans do indeed belong to the family Hominidae, known colloquially as "The Great Apes" but I don't think many biologists and zoologists refer to humans as Apes. You often hear references to "Humans and the Great Apes" as if they are separate entities. When I think of Apes I think of non-human primates. Anyway I don't think it's worth arguing about. I would prefer to focus on the topic of the thread.

The current nomenclature is non-human ape. Sort of like non-avian dinosaur. There has been a push in the last few decades do stick with monophyletic groupings wherever possible, and the simplest solution with Hominidae is to simply refer to the whole ranking as 'apes.'

I realize this is a distraction, and for that I apologize, but it's an issue that is very central to biology and of central interest to myself. Most people don't realize this, but the taxonomic system many of us learned in high school based on Linnaean taxonomy is a relic of the past. The current system is cladistics, i.e. systematic phylogenetics, where the only valid biological groupings are those based on evolutionary descent.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Do you have a problem with the dictionary?

Anyway, humans are classified in the family Hominidae, which is the Great Apes. Humans are apes. Humans are also primates, since all apes are primates.

Humans do indeed belong to the family Hominidae, known colloquially as "The Great Apes" but I don't think many biologists and zoologists refer to humans as Apes. You often hear references to "Humans and the Great Apes" as if they are separate entities. When I think of Apes I think of non-human primates. Anyway I don't think it's worth arguing about. I would prefer to focus on the topic of the thread.

I apologize for the distraction as well, but the dictionary definition doesn't quite apply here - notice that the definition you chose has "(loosely)" attached to it. That's not the scientific definition of an ape, as it excludes humans; if we went by it, that may make humans paraphyletic to apes, and as J824P noted, we're seeing a push towards monophyletic classifications.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, ApostateAbe's post on such things as brain size, bone density and the like may need some explanation. He only gives the titles he refers to, rather than the salient sections of said texts that provide specifics for his argument.

 

[Bomb#20]

EgalitarianJay, humans are apes.

Humans are primates, not apes.

Ape noun 1. any of a group of anthropoid primates characterized by long arms, a broad chest, and the absence of a tail, comprising the family Pongidae (great ape) which includes the chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan, and the family Hylobatidae (lesser ape) which includes the gibbon and siamang.
...

Are you seriously citing a dictionary definition?

Anyway, humans are classified in the family Hominidae, which is the Great Apes. Humans are apes. Humans are also primates, since all apes are primates.

Do you have a problem with the dictionary?

Why, do you have a problem with having a problem with the dictionary? Because you yourself have a rather severe problem with the dictionary. But we'll get to that later...

Anyway, humans are classified in the family Hominidae, which is the Great Apes. Humans are apes. Humans are also primates, since all apes are primates.

Humans do indeed belong to the family Hominidae, known colloquially as "The Great Apes" but I don't think many biologists and zoologists refer to humans as Apes. You often hear references to "Humans and the Great Apes" as if they are separate entities. When I think of Apes I think of non-human primates. Anyway I don't think it's worth arguing about. I would prefer to focus on the topic of the thread.

But you are focused on the topic of the thread. This is not a distraction at all; it's fundamental. There's nothing unscientific about your dictionary definition. It's a paraphyletic category, and lately biologists have collectively taken up discouraging the use of paraphyletic groupings. But that does not make those groupings invalid; it merely makes them unfashionable. Arguing about whether "humans are apes", "humans are descended from apes", or "humans and apes share a common ancestor" is the most appropriate way to describe the facts of natural history is no more a scientific dispute than arguing over whether the word "planet" should include Pluto. It's an argument over a labeling convention. No doubt there are good practical reasons for why current biologists prefer cladistics to the traditional convention; but then there were also good practical reasons for why the old system was the way it was -- witness how often we now hear the phrase "non-avian dinosaur" compared to how often we hear the word "dinosaur" being used all by itself to refer to the clade containing ducks and duck-billed dinosaurs. The fact is, lots of paraphyletic categories are more useful than the entire clades containing them. "Dinosaur" and "ape" were perfectly sensible scientific terms in common use both by scientists and by the general public, and then biologists for reasons of their own decided to give those terms new definitions: new meanings that are technical jargon. And that's fine -- every profession is entitled to do that -- but the point is, when you do that, it doesn't make the traditional usage wrong. You cannot make somebody wrong by hijacking the words he's using and redefining them to suit your own taste. To attempt to do so -- to call somebody wrong because he hasn't kept up with the latest fashion in terminology -- is equivocation. It's in the Logical Fallacy FAQ.

So why am I belaboring this point? Why am I lecturing you about how right you are not to be cowed by J842P and ZB telling you humans are apes and citing authorities? Here's why:

The argument goes wrong from not understanding evolutionary theory. Even if human races fully diverged into two different species (at this point races would be only part of the way toward speciation and may be merging again and never speciating in the future), each species would still be humans, because evolution is a diverging hierarchy. All mammals have a common ancestor, and, no matter how much dolphins and humans evolve away from each other, each population is still mammals. Humans are still great apes, still primates, still mammals, still tetrapods, still chordates, still animals and still eukaryotes.

Race in the biological literature is equivalent to subspecies. A subspecies is a population on the cusp of speciation. To determine that a population has reached that threshold where they are nearly a different species they must exhibit an objective disagree of genetic divergence. Nye's argument is that human populations haven't diverged enough to be called races. There is biological variation in the human species but we're not so biologically differentiated as to be called races.
...
Scientific racists are motivated by ideology. Bill Nye appears to be motivated by the desire to advance an objective scientific position.You might say he has an Egalitarian agenda but his position is still supported by science. Racial classification is a social construct. Subspecies do exist in some animal species but not all of them and certainly not in humans. It's not impossible for humans to diverge racially but at present there are no biological races in the human species.

Which brings us full circle. Do you have a problem with the dictionary?

"race noun 1 Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics:
'people of all races, colors, and creeds'" -- OED​

When biologists decided to use "race" in the biological literature as a synonym for "subspecies", and (sort of) defined an objective threshold of genetic divergence as a criterion, they were hijacking a word already in use for a different meaning. They were doing exactly the same thing modern cladists did when they redefined "ape" and "dinosaur". That's not science. That's literary convention. So no, Bill Nye is not motivated by the desire to advance an objective scientific position. His position is not supported by science. You cannot make somebody wrong by hijacking the words he's using and redefining them to suit your own taste. You cannot make racial classification be a social construct by choosing an objective threshold of genetic divergence that exceeds the divergence of the major divisions of humankind and simply declaring that "race" means your threshold rather than humankind's divisions.

So if we decide the required degree of genetic divergence for subspecies is X, and we measure the divergence between two human divisions that are called "races" -- called "races" not in biological technical jargon but in plain English -- and find that it's X/2, we have not proven Homo sapiens does not have races. We have proven that "race" and "subspecies" are not synonyms. "Race" in popular use evidently corresponds to what botanists would call a "variety" -- it's a taxonomic categorization level below "subspecies". Of course, people are not plants. We're animals. Zoologists don't use "varieties" in animal names. But that isn't because animals don't have sub-subspecies-level genetic variation. It's because a committee of zoologists voted not to use variety names. You can't make Homo sapiens sapiens caucasoidensis disappear in a puff of logic by choosing not to use four-word names.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

When biologists decided to use "race" in the biological literature as a synonym for "subspecies", and (sort of) defined an objective threshold of genetic divergence as a criterion, they were hijacking a word already in use for a different meaning. They were doing exactly the same thing modern cladists did when they redefined "ape" and "dinosaur". That's not science. That's literary convention. So no, Bill Nye is not motivated by the desire to advance an objective scientific position. His position is not supported by science. You cannot make somebody wrong by hijacking the words he's using and redefining them to suit your own taste. You cannot make racial classification be a social construct by choosing an objective threshold of genetic divergence that exceeds the divergence of the major divisions of humankind and simply declaring that "race" means your threshold rather than humankind's divisions.

The difficulty is that when we go lower than the subspecies level in taxonomy, we enter the realm of the infraspecific name (in the case of botany) and informal ranks - one can notice the various ranks (such as subfamily or tribe) included as taxa, which are considered minor ranks. Bill Nye would be correct to say that "race" (as a social construct) isn't scientifically viable, since we do not have a solid, cohesive terminology for it, or even an exact number of "races" within the human species. As I mentioned earlier, societies devise their own racial categories for the sake of convenience, rather than from a thorough scientific understanding of the intricacies of human genetics.

 

[Bomb#20]

The difficulty is that when we go lower than the subspecies level in taxonomy, we enter the realm of the infraspecific name (in the case of botany) and informal ranks - one can notice the various ranks (such as subfamily or tribe) included as taxa, which are considered minor ranks. Bill Nye would be correct to say that "race" (as a social construct) isn't scientifically viable, since we do not have a solid, cohesive terminology for it, or even an exact number of "races" within the human species. As I mentioned earlier, societies devise their own racial categories for the sake of convenience, rather than from a thorough scientific understanding of the intricacies of human genetics.

But we enter the realm of the infraspecific name as soon as we go lower than the species level. All the uncertainties of varieties apply to subspecies as well. The so-called threshold for an objective amount of divergence is rarely applied in practice -- most subspecies are identified by seat-of-the-pants opinion. And the lack of solid cohesive terminology also applies above the species level. The number of recognized orders and families and classes is variable too. The only taxonomic rank with anything resembling a non-arbitrary criterion is "species" itself. The problem with labeling sections of tree structure with rank is that ranks are digital and trees are analog. A tree can branch at any point, whether we've chosen a conventional label for that level of branching or not. None of these naming difficulties have any bearing on the scientific objectivity of the tree itself. We can argue 'til the cows come home about whether "mammal" should include platypuses, or be limited to placentals and marsupials, or include various subsets of the mammal-like reptiles, but none of that calls into question the reality of the group containing placentals, marsupials, and the extinct multituberculates but excluding platypuses. The circumstance that we decide not to coin a word for that group doesn't make the group itself a social construct. Call it what we will, it remains a fact of natural history.

The point is, whether we have a solid, cohesive terminology for human variation below the species level has no bearing on the reality of the caucasoids. That's a natural phenomenon, verifiable by genetic tests. To jump from the premise that it's an arbitrary cultural choice whether we use "race" to describe groups like the caucasoids, to the conclusion that the caucasoid group is a social construct and not a natural feature of the human genetic landscape, is an error in reasoning.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

The point is, whether we have a solid, cohesive terminology for human variation below the species level has no bearing on the reality of the caucasoids. That's a natural phenomenon, verifiable by genetic tests. To jump from the premise that it's an arbitrary cultural choice whether we use "race" to describe groups like the caucasoids, to the conclusion that the caucasoid group is a social construct and not a natural feature of the human genetic landscape, is an error in reasoning.

The thing is, in order to propose a "caucasoid" label (which would be below subspecies level, as the full taxonomic name for humans is H. sapiens sapiens), one would have to define "caucasoid," and what it entails - you may not like the current cladistic system of taxonomy, but scientists correlate their findings to have a greater grasp of what they're talking about. Taxonomy isn't quite as arbitrary as you may think; it's not perfect (nothing is), but it's based on observable genetic and physiological similarities.

 

[ApostateAbe]

The point is, whether we have a solid, cohesive terminology for human variation below the species level has no bearing on the reality of the caucasoids. That's a natural phenomenon, verifiable by genetic tests. To jump from the premise that it's an arbitrary cultural choice whether we use "race" to describe groups like the caucasoids, to the conclusion that the caucasoid group is a social construct and not a natural feature of the human genetic landscape, is an error in reasoning.

The thing is, in order to propose a "caucasoid" label (which would be below subspecies level, as the full taxonomic name for humans is H. sapiens sapiens), one would have to define "caucasoid," and what it entails - you may not like the current cladistic system of taxonomy, but scientists correlate their findings to have a greater grasp of what they're talking about. Taxonomy isn't quite as arbitrary as you may think; it's not perfect (nothing is), but it's based on observable genetic and physiological similarities.

The most common rule for the identification is the "75% rule," which is: if 75% of a population has a phenotype or set of phenotypes NOT common to 99% of the remainder of the species, then it is a subspecies. By this criterion, races of humans can mostly certainly be said to to be subspecies. The main reason that they are NOT classified as subspecies is merely custom. This is the opinion of the population geneticist Sewall Wright (who formulated Fst), per his book, Evolution and the Genetics of Populations, Volume 4; Variability within and among Natural Populations, page 439, first page of Chapter 10.

Show

 

[Bomb#20]

The thing is, in order to propose a "caucasoid" label (which would be below subspecies level, as the full taxonomic name for humans is H. sapiens sapiens),

Hence "Homo sapiens sapiens caucasoidensis", as I said. Or as the botanists would have it, "Homo sapiens subsp. sapiens var. caucasoidensis". (I got the -ensis part from Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Any objections?)

one would have to define "caucasoid," and what it entails

"The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid[1] or occasionally Europid[2]) is a taxon historically used to describe the physical or biological type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia.[3] The term was used in biological anthropology for many people from these regions, without regard necessarily to skin tone.[4] First introduced in early racial science and anthropometry, the taxon has historically been used to denote one of the three proposed major races (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid) of humankind.[5] Although its validity and utility are disputed by many anthropologists, Caucasoid as a biological classification remains in use,[6] particularly within the field of forensic anthropology.[5]" (Source)

Will that do?

- you may not like the current cladistic system of taxonomy, but scientists correlate their findings to have a greater grasp of what they're talking about. Taxonomy isn't quite as arbitrary as you may think; it's not perfect (nothing is), but it's based on observable genetic and physiological similarities.

Perhaps I gave the wrong impression. I like cladistics just fine. It isn't arbitrary. As naming conventions go it has a great deal to recommend it. The occasional resulting clumsiness like "non-avian dinosaur" is a pretty minor problem compared to its advantages. I'm simply urging people to remember that it's just a notation. It's like calculus -- today nobody uses Newton's notation for it; we all use Leibniz's notation. Its practical advantages make that a no-brainer. But we should never let that fool us into thinking Newton wasn't doing calculus. Likewise, before cladistics, biologists used "evolutionary taxonomy". Many still do; Ernst Mayr is a famous proponent. The point is, evolutionary taxonomy wasn't arbitrary either. It wasn't perfect (nothing is), but it was also based on observable genetic and physiological similarities. Taxonomy was scientific long before cladists came along. To hear some cladists talk, you'd think taxonomy leapt from Linnaeus' pre-scientific notions to cladists' modern state of enlightenment with nothing in between. But the reality is that non-arbitrary systematics began even before Darwin. Far from evolutionary considerations being necessary in order to do taxonomy correctly, the discovery of homology by pre-Darwinian taxonomists was one of the lines of evidence that led Darwin to evolution.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, ApostateAbe's post on such things as brain size, bone density and the like may need some explanation. He only gives the titles he refers to, rather than the salient sections of said texts that provide specifics for his argument.

Yes, let's return to the topic. I told ApostateAbe that I was going to review his sources so that we could debate the issue and that is exactly what I'm going to do in this post.

So this is my assessment of the information he provided.....

First of all it is ApostateAbe's claim that there are biological human races and that evolution has led to racial differences in the traits that he listed. So each source should be consistent with the following claims:

1) There are biological races.

2) The differences in the given measured traits between races are caused by genetic differences between races.

So with that being said here is my review of the sources in question.....

bone density: Wagner and Heyward - Measures of body composition in blacks and whites- a comparative review 2000

The last paragraph of this article indicates that cultural factors may play a role in racial differences in body composition.

Finally, only a few of the comparative studies that we reviewed made any mention of the socioeconomic status or environmental background of the subjects studied. These are certainly important variables that may confound the findings of racial differences in body-composition research. For example, there are inverse relations between social class and both protein deficiency and obesity in affluent, modernized societies, whereas there is a positive correlation between class and obesity in developing countries (59). We urge body-composition researchers to collect and report socioeconomic, ethnic, and environmental background data in future studies. This information, combined with the emerging advances in genetic research, could lead to a better understanding of the differences in body composition between racial or ethnic groups and the prevalence of obesity-related diseases.

Source: Measures of body composition in blacks and whites: a comparative review American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 71:1392–402 (2000)

It's clear that there is a racial difference in body composition including bone density but unclear about whether this difference is due to genetic and evolutionary factors.

height (heritability): Schousboe et al - Twin study of genetic and environmental influences on adult body size, shape, and composition 2004

This study doesn't mention race at all.

muscle mass: Schutte et al - Density of lean body mass is greater in blacks than in whites 1984

This study does indicate that there are racial differences in muscle density between Blacks and Whites but doesn't comment on genetic vs. environmental factors.

brain size: Beals, Smith and Dodd - Brain Size, Cranial Morphology, Climate, and Time Machines 1984

This study indicates that brain size has a much stronger correlation with climate than with race.

We find little support for the use of brain size in taxonomic assessment (other than with paleontological extremes over time). Racial taxonomies which include cranial capacity, head shape, or any other trait influenced by climate confound ecotypic and phyletic causes. For Pleistocene hominids, we doubt that the volume of the braincase is any more taxonomically "valuable" than any other trait. Ecotypic differentiation (fig. 9) appears sometimes greater than average taxonomic difference. A slight increase in head size combined with a rounder cranium has a disproportionate effect upon volume. Even with absolute capacity difference, a connection to reproductive isolation is questionable given the lack of such connection among modern peoples.

Source: Brain Size, Cranial Morphology, Climate, and Time Machines CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY V01. 25, NO 3, June 1984

3. Rushton’s cranioracial variation is contradicted by evolutionary anthropology.


Rushton (1990:786) takes cranial measurements from a study by Beals, Smith, and Dodd (1984) without mentioning that study’s finding that while climate variables were strongly correlated with cranial variation, “race” and cranial variation had low correlations. The relationship between latitude and
cranial size is an example of Bergmann’s principle that crania are more spherical in cold climates because mass increases relative to surface area to conserve core temperatures: “A slight increase in head size combined with a rounder cranium has a disproportionate effect upon volume” (Beals, Smith, and Dodd 1984:312).

“The closer a structure approaches a spherical shape, the lower will be the surface-to-volume ratio” affecting radiation of metabolic heat and temperature regulation, which is especially important in colder climates because as much as “80 percent of body heat may be lost through our heads
on cold days” (Molnar 1998:202). Beals, Smith, and Dodd emphasize that this relationship is independent of “race.” “In fact, several of their climatological-cranial correlations reach .60, much higher than any relationship Rushton has been able to report for race, except for one study” (Weizmann et al. 1996:196). Rushton argues that “Mongoloids” have superior, larger brains because in their evolution they had to adapt to a cognitively demanding but predictable cold Pleistocene climate (1997a). An alternative scenario is provided by Brace (1998:112): “the mode of subsistence of all human populations was essentially the same throughout the entire range of human occupation over the past 200,000 years.
This was conditioned by adaptation to the selective pressure engendered by the cultural ecological niche. For these reasons, then, cognitive capabilities should . . . be the same in all the living populations of the world.”

Brace points out (p. 4) that 100,000 years ago early moderns at Qafza “were making the same tools, hunting the same animals . . . as their Neanderthal contemporaries,” and therefore we can conclude that human cognitive capabilities are distributed in a nonclinal way. Similarly,
Dobzhansky and Montagu (1947:112) had suggested that natural selection in human societies favored “maturity of judgment and ability to get along with people.” The complex ability to adapt to relationships within a group was a selective factor operating everywhere. How is it possible that cranial size varies with latitude while intelligence is nonclinal in its distribution? Cranial size is a response to natural selection in a cold climate, while variations in the size of the brain do not determine intelligence within the species-normal range of 1,000–2,000 cm3, especially considering the role of cultural environment.

Source: How “Caucasoids” Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank Current Anthropology Volume 42, Number 1, February 2001

lactose tolerance: Scrimshaw and Murray - The acceptability of milk and milk products in populations with a high prevalence of lactose intolerance 1988

This study does not make claims of gene-based racial differences in lactose intolerance.

lung size: Harik-Khan, Muller and Wise - Racial Difference in Lung Function in African-American and White Children- Effect of Anthropometric, Socioeconomic, Nutritional, and Environmental Factors 2004

In this study it says in the abstract that the environmental effects on differences in lung volume are unknown.

African-American children have lower lung volumes than White children. However, the contributions of
anthropometric, socioeconomic, nutritional, and environmental factors to this difference are unknown. From
participants in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988–1994), the authors selected
1,462 healthy nonsmoking children (623 White and 839 African-American) aged 8–17 years. The African-
American children were taller and heavier but had lower lung function. African Americans were poorer and had
lower levels of the antioxidant vitamins A and C and α-carotene. The authors performed regression analyses
using data on anthropometric, socioeconomic, and nutritional factors and smoke exposure. Adjustment for sitting
height explained 42–53% of the racial difference. Socioeconomic factors and antioxidant vitamin levels
accounted for an additional 7–10%. Overall, the authors could account for only 50–63% of the racial difference.
Exposure to tobacco in the home was weakly associated with forced expiratory volume in 1 second in girls,
accounting for 1% of the difference. In children aged 8–12 years (n = 752), birth weight explained 3–5% of the
racial difference, whereas in-utero exposure to maternal smoking had no significant effect. The authors conclude
that in healthy children, the major explanatory variable for the racial difference in lung function is body habitus;
socioeconomic, nutritional, and environmental confounders play a smaller role.

Source: Racial Difference in Lung Function in African-American and White Children: Effect of Anthropometric, Socioeconomic, Nutritional, and Environmental Factors American Journal of Epidemiology (2004)

penis size: WHO - The Male Latex Condom 1998

Condom size is a very poor measure of penis size.

blood pressure: Jones and Hall - Racial and Ethnic Differences in Blood Pressure 2006

The study says nothing about blood pressure differences between races being genetic.

blood type: Wikipedia - Blood type distribution by country 2015

The Wikipedia article shows variance of blood type by country not race.

testosterone: Ellis and Nyborg - Racial ethnic variations in male testosterone levels- A probable contributor to group differences in health 1992

Ellis and Nyborg are well-known racialists. There is a more recent study which shows that controlling for age and BMI eliminates the racial difference in testosterone.

Serum testosterone concentration appears to be higher in black men than white men, particularly at younger ages. The higher incidence of prostate cancer in blacks has been attributed, at least in part, to this difference. Other factors associated with androgen levels in men include age and obesity. However, most of the studies of adult androgen levels are limited by their cross-sectional design. We conducted longitudinal analyses (Generalized Estimating Equation) of the associations of age, body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference with total and free testosterone and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) concentrations during an 8-year period and compared these hormonal factors between black (n = 483) and white (n = 695) male participants of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. For men ages 24 years and older at the time of the first hormone measurement, increasing age was associated with a statistically significant decrease in serum total and free testosterone and an increase in SHBG (P < 0.05). BMI and waist circumference were inversely associated with total testosterone and SHBG, but only BMI was inversely associated with free testosterone. After adjustment for age and BMI, total testosterone was higher in blacks (0.21 ng/ml; P = 0.028) than whites, an approximately 3% difference. However, after further adjustment for waist circumference, there was no black-white difference (0.05 ng/ml; P = 0.62). These results indicate that the age-associated decrease in circulating testosterone and increase in SHBG begin during the 3rd decade of life, and that increasing obesity, particularly central obesity, is associated with decreasing total testosterone and SHBG. Results also suggest that the previously observed difference in total testosterone between black and white men could be attributed, for the most part, to racial differences in abdominal obesity.

Source: Serum androgen concentrations in young men: a longitudinal analysis of associations with age, obesity, and race. The CARDIA male hormone study. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention Oct;11(10 Pt 1):1041-7 (2002)

estrogen: Kim et al - Racial-Ethnic Differences in Sex Hormone Levels among Postmenopausal Women in the Diabetes Prevention Program 2012

This study found greater variance in estrogen within groups than between groups.

pathogen resistances: Novembre, Galvani and Slatkin - The Geographic Spread of the CCR5 Δ32 HIV-Resistance Allele 2005

Genes that control pathogen resistance can indeed vary geographically but they are not markers of racial ancestry.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Jay, thanks for all that. I would love to take this one point at a time, if you are willing. You dismissed the point about the strong heritability of height (the study found 81% h² for women and 69% h² for men) as irrelevant to racial differences in height, and I am wondering about that. I expect you agree with me that there are of course racial differences in height. What do you think causes racial differences in average height? Are the racial differences in height due to genetic differences for sure? Or do you think maybe it is due to something else? I have seen speculations that it could be caused by differences in diet. Like: Asians eat rice, and this makes them short?

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Jay, thanks for all that. I would love to take this one point at a time, if you are willing. You dismissed the point about the strong heritability of height (the study found 81% h² for women and 69% h² for men) as irrelevant to racial differences in height, and I am wondering about that. I expect you agree with me that there are of course racial differences in height. What do you think causes racial differences in average height? Are the racial differences in height due to genetic differences for sure? Or do you think maybe it is due to something else? I have seen speculations that it could be caused by differences in diet. Like: Asians eat rice, and this makes them short?

Populations differ in height for environmental and genetic reasons. Some of this differential is indeed due to evolutionary adaptation and some probably due to random mutations. Consider that the African Pygmy and Tutsi ethnic groups are both considered to be Black but one population is short and the other tall.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Jay, thanks for all that. I would love to take this one point at a time, if you are willing. You dismissed the point about the strong heritability of height (the study found 81% h² for women and 69% h² for men) as irrelevant to racial differences in height, and I am wondering about that. I expect you agree with me that there are of course racial differences in height. What do you think causes racial differences in average height? Are the racial differences in height due to genetic differences for sure? Or do you think maybe it is due to something else? I have seen speculations that it could be caused by differences in diet. Like: Asians eat rice, and this makes them short?

Populations differ in height for environmental and genetic reasons. Some of this differential is indeed due to evolutionary adaptation and some probably due to random mutations. Consider that the African Pygmy and Tutsi ethnic groups are both considered to be Black but one population is short and the other tall.

Great, you are not completely out of your mind. It is rare when I talk with those people who think height differences among the races have nothing to do with genetic differences, but they exist. It is one of a handful of very obvious genetic differences among the races. Another is skin color. Unlike height differences, we know exactly what causes it. Rational people agree that skin color differences among human populations are an adaptation to levels of incoming UV varying by geography. The PBS program, "Race: The Power of an Illusion," made a point of it. Races don't exist, but varying genetic adaptations to varying environments such as with skin color do exist, as though those two things are different. I think Joseph Graves would agree with the Darwinian explanation for skin color differences, as he was part of that PBS program. Not everyone agrees with the point about skin color, though, apparently. Richard Lewontin said with respect to that hypothesis, "don't believe the stories," in this lecture here, at 1h 0m 25s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvG1ylKhzoo&feature=youtu.be&t=1h25s

His explicit reasoning was that a person who gets skin cancer "generally gets that skin cancer after reproductive years." He said this as an evolutionary biologist, and it surprises me because as an evolutionary biologist he should know that even a mildly greater likelihood to get skin cancer during reproductive years would provide significant selection pressure in favor of darker skin in the tropics. The objection would work only if skin color during reproductive years was an impossibility, not just an improbability. He instead favors speculation that the varying skin colors is due to sexual selection, a speculation that would have no explanatory power at all. Lewontin's explanation would still be a genetic racial difference, but I think the alternative provides the advantage of being disconnected from Darwinian evolution related to differences in ancestral climate. The scientific racist theories are all about varying racial adaptations to varying climate, and the racial difference in skin color is only one among many. If you can have skin color differences as varying adaptations to varying climates, then you can have such differing psychological adaptations. Lewontin favors something more chaotic, for apparently moral reasons. Maybe I should included skin color differences in my list.

For now, I will assume that you agree with Joseph Graves and not Richard Lewontin on the matter of skin color. The skin color adaptation to climate would make plausible similar claims of psychological adaptations to climate--plausible, not that it constitutes proof. It is also a comparison that seems to undercut the relevance of many objections to claims of racial differences, such as the objections you listed.

• "variance... by country not race."
• "greater variance... within groups than between groups."
• "...not markers of racial ancestry."

As a hypothetical, let's suppose genotypic intelligence varies the same way skin color varies. All of these objections can still hold as true. Intelligence can genetically vary by country, not by race (with a definition of "race" different from what I use). There would be greater variations of intelligence within groups than between groups (or at least that would be an acceptable possibility). And the alleles for intelligence would not be markers of racial ancestry. Would any of those points really make a significant difference, in your opinion? It would strike down the model of intelligence genetically varying by race, and instead intelligence genetically varies by... populations of varying genetics?

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Joseph Graves actually made the point in the video below that even if races didn't exist you could have populations that varied in their Life History traits including intelligence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUjo31DChcE&feature=youtu.be&t=56m57s

So what we're basically talking about is the existence of certain phenotypic differences within the human species. Now I would argue that just because some phenotypic differences exist that doesn't mean that every trait including intelligence varies from population to population or race to race. Skin color differences exist and their variance is caused by genetic differences. IQ tests are an attempt to measure intelligence and there is variance in score but the reason may be entirely environmental and there is scientific evidence for this. The debate over racial differences very much depends on the definition of race and the evidence for or against racial differences can be interpreted in different ways making this a difficult discussion to have.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Joseph Graves actually made the point in the video below that even if races didn't exist you could have populations that varied in their Life History traits including intelligence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUjo31DChcE&feature=youtu.be&t=56m57s

So what we're basically talking about is the existence of certain phenotypic differences within the human species. Now I would argue that just because some phenotypic differences exist that doesn't mean that every trait including intelligence varies from population to population or race to race. Skin color differences exist and their variance is caused by genetic differences. IQ tests are an attempt to measure intelligence and there is variance in score but the reason may be entirely environmental and there is scientific evidence for this. The debate over racial differences very much depends on the definition of race and the evidence for or against racial differences can be interpreted in different ways making this a difficult discussion to have.

OK, maybe we should agree on a definition of "race." I define "races" as: sets of populations, within a species, of varying average allele frequencies due to varying geographic ranges. I allow an exception to this definition, for sympatric races: when the differential breeding patterns are not a function of geography. This exception is presumably why Ernst Mayr uses the phrase "geographic race" in his discussion of human races instead of just "race." But, that is not so relevant for the human species. Other given biological definitions of race found elsewhere (including Ernst Mayr's definition) tend to depend on the word "distinct," but there is always a question of what "distinct" means, so those definitions are not so useful. With the strictest definition of "distinct," races do not exist in any species on the planet, though races are essential for evolutionary divergence to ever happen. My definition I think is at odds with Joseph Graves' definition, am I right?

 

[Bomb#20]

Not everyone agrees with the point about skin color, though, apparently. Richard Lewontin said with respect to that hypothesis, "don't believe the stories," in this lecture here, at 1h 0m 25s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvG1ylKhzoo&feature=youtu.be&t=1h25s

His explicit reasoning was that a person who gets skin cancer "generally gets that skin cancer after reproductive years." He said this as an evolutionary biologist, and it surprises me because as an evolutionary biologist he should know that even a mildly greater likelihood to get skin cancer during reproductive years would provide significant selection pressure in favor of darker skin in the tropics. The objection would work only if skin color during reproductive years was an impossibility, not just an improbability.

Lewontin says a lot of idiotic things. The above is a ridiculous argument for more reasons than the one you point out. In the first place, human children are for many years close to helpless without their parents. A person who gets skin cancer and dies after her reproductive years, leaving her children orphaned, thereby stands a good chance of taking out the alleles that made her susceptible to skin cancer. And in the second place, skin cancer is hardly the only way light skin can hurt you in the tropics. Bad sunburn is incapacitating.

He instead favors speculation that the varying skin colors is due to sexual selection, a speculation that would have no explanatory power at all.

Sexual selection is legendary for being a catch-all for any trait a biologist can't think of an adaptive explanation for.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Joseph Graves actually made the point in the video below that even if races didn't exist you could have populations that varied in their Life History traits including intelligence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUjo31DChcE&feature=youtu.be&t=56m57s

So what we're basically talking about is the existence of certain phenotypic differences within the human species. Now I would argue that just because some phenotypic differences exist that doesn't mean that every trait including intelligence varies from population to population or race to race. Skin color differences exist and their variance is caused by genetic differences. IQ tests are an attempt to measure intelligence and there is variance in score but the reason may be entirely environmental and there is scientific evidence for this. The debate over racial differences very much depends on the definition of race and the evidence for or against racial differences can be interpreted in different ways making this a difficult discussion to have.

OK, maybe we should agree on a definition of "race." I define "races" as: sets of populations, within a species, of varying average allele frequencies due to varying geographic ranges. I allow an exception to this definition, for sympatric races: when the differential breeding patterns are not a function of geography. This exception is presumably why Ernst Mayr uses the phrase "geographic race" in his discussion of human races instead of just "race." But, that is not so relevant for the human species. Other given biological definitions of race found elsewhere (including Ernst Mayr's definition) tend to depend on the word "distinct," but there is always a question of what "distinct" means, so those definitions are not so useful. With the strictest definition of "distinct," races do not exist in any species on the planet, though races are essential for evolutionary divergence to ever happen. My definition I think is at odds with Joseph Graves' definition, am I right?

This is what Graves had to say about the biological definitions of race:

There have been four ways in which the race concept has been conceived: essentialist, taxonomic, population, and lineage. Essentialist notions of race are ancient, and are not necessarily related to any concept of common descent. Essentialism claims that there is an essence of traits that can be understood as characterizing a species (and thus any races that might exist within it). The taxonomic race concept suggests that there are aggregate populations of a species possessing phenotypic similarities and inhabiting geographic subdivisions of the range of the species. The taxonomic race conception fails due to the principle of discordance. Discordance means that physical traits, which result from differential portions of an organism’s genome, are being influenced by different and often unrelated selection regimes. So for example, we do not expect that selection regimes which influence skin color (solar intensity) to be associated with those that influence height. The Kenyan Watusi are tall people, displaying tropical body proportions and have dark skin. The Aleut people are short people displaying arctic body proportions with light skin. Yet, there are Biaka pygmies who are short and have dark skin. Thus, evolutionary biologists long ago rejected the essentialist and taxonomic definitions of species (and thereby those same definitions applied to race as well). This means that only the population and lineage definitions of race retain any utility.

Population definitions of race revolve around how much genetic variation exists within and between supposed racial groups. If there is more genetic variation within a group than between them, we really cannot support the notion that the groups have diverged sufficiently to describe biological races. For evolutionary biology, biological races occur as part of the speciation process. Through the species’ history, local adaptation and genetic drift may cause sufficient changes in some populations such that they eventually form new species from the original founders. This process is dynamic, and populations may diverge or converge genetically over the lifetime of the species without ever giving rise to new ones. Obviously, given this process, the amount of variation cannot be evaluated at one or a small number of genetic loci. Or so it would seem if geographical races result from the gradual process of speciation. Ernst Mayr discussed this in his classic work, Population Species, and Evolution.


Biological Races

A necessary corollary of any theory of gradual speciation is that there should exist in nature “forms” or “varieties” or “populations” that are incipient species. Kinds of animals that show no (or only slight) structural differences, although clearly separable by biological characters, are called biological races.”(p. 258).
Mayr did not explain what he meant by “clearly separable,” but he did state that of all the phenomena listed as races in the biological literature, the best case for the existence of true biological races in nature are the host races formed by various insect species on different plant species. It is notable that he did not think that humans fit this definition well. Yet it does not take much genetic variation at all to account for host-race formation in insects. In the most well-studied case of this, Rhagoletispomonella (the apple maggot fly) has formed two host races throughout its geographic range. The fly ancestral host is the hawthorn tree (Crataegus spp). About 150 years ago, this fly species was recorded as being a pest of cultivated apple trees (Malus). It is now known that allele frequencies at about four loci are differentiated between the two host races. In this case, the loci deal with simple traits that impact fitness on the host plants, feeding and development time, and mate choice. Thus, in the case of insect host races (which are biological races), one does not need many loci to create races. No one, however, would claim that racial formation in organisms with more complex behavior is this simple.

Source: Race, Genomics and Intelligence: Slight Return by Joseph Graves

 

[ApostateAbe]

Lewontin says a lot of idiotic things. The above is a ridiculous argument for more reasons than the one you point out. In the first place, human children are for many years close to helpless without their parents. A person who gets skin cancer and dies after her reproductive years, leaving her children orphaned, thereby stands a good chance of taking out the alleles that made her susceptible to skin cancer. And in the second place, skin cancer is hardly the only way light skin can hurt you in the tropics. Bad sunburn is incapacitating.

He instead favors speculation that the varying skin colors is due to sexual selection, a speculation that would have no explanatory power at all.

Sexual selection is legendary for being a catch-all for any trait a biologist can't think of an adaptive explanation for.

I have wondered: Lewontin is often credited as being a highly respected Harvard evolutionary biologist, even among his critics such as Richard Dawkins, but what did he ever contribute but the popularization of fallacies?

 

[ApostateAbe]

Answer in Genesis YouTube video promoting Ken Ham's pseudoscience.