Does Race Exist? The continuum fallacy and the fallacy of convergent evolution

[ApostateAbe]

The PBS website has a page titled, "Does Race Exist?" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html), that presents two sides of the race debate (in contrast to its 2003 debacle "Race: The Power of an Illusion," that was purely one-sided in favor of the wrong side). The antagonist is the anthropologist C. Loring Brace, and the proponent is the forensic anthropologist George W. Gill. I agree with everything written by George W. Gill, and I will discuss my points of disagreement with C. Loring Brace, summarized in two fallacies. If you disagree with George W. Gill, then I am happy to hear your explanations of disagreement.

(1) Continuum fallacy. This fallacy is otherwise known as the "fallacy of the beard," and the example goes like this: "If the stubble on your chin grows another micrometer, does that make it a beard? Suppose it grows another micrometer, and then another micrometer. Can you choose any one of those growth points as the point where your facial hair went from mere stubble to a beard? Yes? Then there is only the tiniest difference between stubble and a beard. No? In that case, beards are impossible. They don't exist."

The author chooses as an example a trip travelling up the Nile River and observing the people, to see if there is any visible boundary between the black Africans and the Arabs. If you cannot choose any point on that trip where the people plainly go from black African to Arab, then "race" has no coherent biological meaning.

He could make the same argument that "color" has no coherent physical meaning, because, although there are plain differences between one color and another, you cannot choose any point along the color spectrum of a rainbow profile where "blue" goes to "green", or where "green" goes to "yellow", or where "yellow" goes to "red." Colors, therefore, are merely cultural, having no correspondence to physical reality.

(2) Fallacy of convergent evolution. This is a fallacy that was pioneered by creationists, and it goes like this: "The model of evolution you have constructed is disorganized and subjective, because widely-different branches of your proposed ancestral tree have shared phenotypes."

The fallacy is that even phenotypes common to two populations (i.e. the author cites sickle-cell anemia) can have completely separate genotypes. Convergent evolution happens when two different populations (who tend to share similar environments) evolve adaptations with similar phenotypes. In the case of sickle-cell anemia, it is a phenotype with differing genotypes among different populations (different populations adapted with the same phenotype but with different genotypes), each to adapt against malaria. The genotypes are the most relevant reflections of evolution, not phenotypes. Convergent evolution exists with genes, too, but it is more rare. That is why you can have your DNA tested, and you can be told with high certainty your "geographic ancestry" (they won't call it "race"). Such tests have a 99.8% correspondence with the "race" you believe yourself to be.

 

[Juma]

The PBS website has a page titled, "Does Race Exist?" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html), that presents two sides of the race debate (in contrast to its 2003 debacle "Race: The Power of an Illusion," that was purely one-sided in favor of the wrong side). The antagonist is the anthropologist C. Loring Brace, and the proponent is the forensic anthropologist George W. Gill. I agree with everything written by George W. Gill, and I will discuss my points of disagreement with C. Loring Brace, summarized in two fallacies. If you disagree with George W. Gill, then I am happy to hear your explanations of disagreement.

(1) Continuum fallacy. This fallacy is otherwise known as the "fallacy of the beard," and the example goes like this: "If the stubble on your chin grows another micrometer, does that make it a beard? Suppose it grows another micrometer, and then another micrometer. Can you choose any one of those growth points as the point where your facial hair went from mere stubble to a beard? Yes? Then there is only the tiniest difference between stubble and a beard. No? In that case, beards are impossible. They don't exist."

The author chooses as an example a trip travelling up the Nile River and observing the people, to see if there is any visible boundary between the black Africans and the Arabs. If you cannot choose any point on that trip where the people plainly go from black African to Arab, then "race" has no coherent biological meaning.

He could make the same argument that "color" has no coherent physical meaning, because, although there are plain differences between one color and another, you cannot choose any point along the color spectrum of a rainbow profile where "blue" goes to "green", or where "green" goes to "yellow", or where "yellow" goes to "red." Colors, therefore, are merely cultural, having no correspondence to physical reality.
.

But this is a strawman since he actually argues for the opposite: these continuous traits exists and is categorizable, they are what makes us believe there are races but: the distribution of genomic traits is in fact way more disparate making the concept of race to be of very little biological value.

 

[skepticalbip]

The PBS website has a page titled, "Does Race Exist?" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html), that presents two sides of the race debate (in contrast to its 2003 debacle "Race: The Power of an Illusion," that was purely one-sided in favor of the wrong side). The antagonist is the anthropologist C. Loring Brace, and the proponent is the forensic anthropologist George W. Gill. I agree with everything written by George W. Gill, and I will discuss my points of disagreement with C. Loring Brace, summarized in two fallacies. If you disagree with George W. Gill, then I am happy to hear your explanations of disagreement.

(1) Continuum fallacy. This fallacy is otherwise known as the "fallacy of the beard," and the example goes like this: "If the stubble on your chin grows another micrometer, does that make it a beard? Suppose it grows another micrometer, and then another micrometer. Can you choose any one of those growth points as the point where your facial hair went from mere stubble to a beard? Yes? Then there is only the tiniest difference between stubble and a beard. No? In that case, beards are impossible. They don't exist."

The author chooses as an example a trip travelling up the Nile River and observing the people, to see if there is any visible boundary between the black Africans and the Arabs. If you cannot choose any point on that trip where the people plainly go from black African to Arab, then "race" has no coherent biological meaning.

He could make the same argument that "color" has no coherent physical meaning, because, although there are plain differences between one color and another, you cannot choose any point along the color spectrum of a rainbow profile where "blue" goes to "green", or where "green" goes to "yellow", or where "yellow" goes to "red." Colors, therefore, are merely cultural, having no correspondence to physical reality.
.

But this is a strawman since he actually argues for the opposite: these continuous traits exists and is categorizable, they are what makes us believe there are races but: the distribution of genomic traits is in fact way more disparate making the concept of race to be of very little biological value.

It is true that it is of little to no biological value. However, it is useful in anthropological studies. Any decent anthropologist can examine a skull and determine the group that it belonged to. We all came from a common stock but isolation brought about modifications that help us identify origins and routes taken by migrating populations. This is how we know that current American Indians migrated here from the orient. The modern age of remixing of populations is making this less and less of a useful tool though.

 

[ApostateAbe]

The PBS website has a page titled, "Does Race Exist?" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html), that presents two sides of the race debate (in contrast to its 2003 debacle "Race: The Power of an Illusion," that was purely one-sided in favor of the wrong side). The antagonist is the anthropologist C. Loring Brace, and the proponent is the forensic anthropologist George W. Gill. I agree with everything written by George W. Gill, and I will discuss my points of disagreement with C. Loring Brace, summarized in two fallacies. If you disagree with George W. Gill, then I am happy to hear your explanations of disagreement.

(1) Continuum fallacy. This fallacy is otherwise known as the "fallacy of the beard," and the example goes like this: "If the stubble on your chin grows another micrometer, does that make it a beard? Suppose it grows another micrometer, and then another micrometer. Can you choose any one of those growth points as the point where your facial hair went from mere stubble to a beard? Yes? Then there is only the tiniest difference between stubble and a beard. No? In that case, beards are impossible. They don't exist."

The author chooses as an example a trip travelling up the Nile River and observing the people, to see if there is any visible boundary between the black Africans and the Arabs. If you cannot choose any point on that trip where the people plainly go from black African to Arab, then "race" has no coherent biological meaning.

He could make the same argument that "color" has no coherent physical meaning, because, although there are plain differences between one color and another, you cannot choose any point along the color spectrum of a rainbow profile where "blue" goes to "green", or where "green" goes to "yellow", or where "yellow" goes to "red." Colors, therefore, are merely cultural, having no correspondence to physical reality.
.

But this is a strawman since he actually argues for the opposite: these continuous traits exists and is categorizable, they are what makes us believe there are races but: the distribution of genomic traits is in fact way more disparate making the concept of race to be of very little biological value.

That would be true with a limited definition of "race," in which races must be discrete categories, and, yeah, that is the definition taken by anthropologists strictly for the purpose of denying race. It is not the definition taken by evolutionary biologists, or it would be a definition in direct conflict with the theory of evolution. Even among the public, even in historical periods, there have been widespread assumptions that races are spectral, i.e. always the recognition of half-breeds and races intermediate between one and another. There are at least a few members of the public who think races are strictly discrete, and it was an opportunity for the community of anthropologists to CORRECT the definition of race. Instead, they took it as an opportunity to deny race.

 

[ApostateAbe]

The reasonable perspective on race (spectral, not discrete) goes at least as far back as Darwin. He used "race" in the first title of his book: "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." In a discussion on dog breeds ("breed" is interchangeable with "race"), he wrote to argue against dog breeds being mere crosses of wild species:

Even in the case of the breeds of the
domestic dog throughout the world, which I admit are descended from
several wild species, it cannot be doubted that there has been an
immense amount of inherited variation; for who will believe that animals
closely resembling the Italian greyhound, the bloodhound, the bull-dog,
pug-dog, or Blenheim spaniel, etc.--so unlike all wild Canidae--ever
existed in a state of nature? It has often been loosely said that all
our races of dogs have been produced by the crossing of a few
aboriginal species; but by crossing we can only get forms in some degree
intermediate between their parents; and if we account for our several
domestic races by this process, we must admit the former existence of
the most extreme forms, as the Italian greyhound, bloodhound, bull-dog,
etc., in the wild state. Moreover, the possibility of making distinct
races by crossing has been greatly exaggerated. Many cases are on record
showing that a race may be modified by occasional crosses if aided
by the careful selection of the individuals which present the desired
character; but to obtain a race intermediate between two quite distinct
races would be very difficult. Sir J. Sebright expressly experimented
with this object and failed. The offspring from the first cross between
two pure breeds is tolerably and sometimes (as I have found with
pigeons) quite uniform in character, and every thing seems simple
enough; but when these mongrels are crossed one with another for several
generations, hardly two of them are alike, and then the difficulty of
the task becomes manifest.

 

[Trodon]

Race is an important biological classification. A person's race can be determined by appearance, and by DNA testing. The different races differ in average ability levels and behavior. These differences are durable across space and time. They are genetic, and have been caused by evolving in response to different population pressures.

 

[bilby]

Race is an important biological classification. A person's race can be determined by appearance, and by DNA testing. The different races differ in average ability levels and behavior. These differences are durable across space and time. They are genetic, and have been caused by evolving in response to different population pressures.

Important to whom?

There is a big difference between 'race is important to the small number of anthropologists who study minor genetic variations amongst human beings' and 'race is important to all citizens, as they must take it into account daily when making choices'.

The former may be true; the latter certainly is not.

Race may or may not exist as a useful concept. The Higgs Boson certainly does exist. The Higgs Boson is an important particle; but almost nobody needs to know anything about it in order to live their day-to-day lives, aside from a few technical specialists in a narrow field. If race exists and is important, then to whom is it 'important'? Why should anyone who is not a geneticist or an anthropologist ever care about race?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Race is an important biological classification. A person's race can be determined by appearance, and by DNA testing. The different races differ in average ability levels and behavior. These differences are durable across space and time. They are genetic, and have been caused by evolving in response to different population pressures.

Can this be demonstrated based on scientific achievement regarding astronomical observations and mathematics amongst different populations across the globe between 30000 BCE and 1000 ACE?

 

[Trodon]

Race is an important biological classification. A person's race can be determined by appearance, and by DNA testing. The different races differ in average ability levels and behavior. These differences are durable across space and time. They are genetic, and have been caused by evolving in response to different population pressures.

Can this be demonstrated based on scientific achievement regarding astronomical observations and mathematics amongst different populations across the globe between 30000 BCE and 1000 ACE?

Of course it can. Consider the civilizations created by the different races. The Mayans were using the concept of zero before the Europeans. Mayan astronomers could predict eclipses of the sun and the moon. The Chinese invented the compass, paper, gun power, and other things as well.

Two thousand years ago the Negro nations of Nubia and Ethiopia had created urban civilizations, but they contributed nothing to the international reputation of science and literature.

 

[fromderinside]

Race is an important biological classification. A person's race can be determined by appearance, and by DNA testing. The different races differ in average ability levels and behavior. These differences are durable across space and time. They are genetic, and have been caused by evolving in response to different population pressures.

Important to whom?

There is a big difference between 'race is important to the small number of anthropologists who study minor genetic variations amongst human beings' and 'race is important to all citizens, as they must take it into account daily when making choices'.

The former may be true; the latter certainly is not.

Race may or may not exist as a useful concept. The Higgs Boson certainly does exist. The Higgs Boson is an important particle; but almost nobody needs to know anything about it in order to live their day-to-day lives, aside from a few technical specialists in a narrow field. If race exists and is important, then to whom is it 'important'? Why should anyone who is not a geneticist or an anthropologist ever care about race?

Since those anthropologists who study skulls are always changing their minds about which skull is of which race and geneticists aren't looking at race, but rather, they are looking at consistent differences among individuals from various regions without regard to race since they don't need pigment or eye shape to find such.

Race is a hysteria producing artifact of human difference nature left over from time when minds weren't that important (didn't make us free from standard physical niche behavior by changing the meaning of niche to include mental attributes).

 

[whichphilosophy]

The PBS website has a page titled, "Does Race Exist?" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html), that presents two sides of the race debate (in contrast to its 2003 debacle "Race: The Power of an Illusion," that was purely one-sided in favor of the wrong side). The antagonist is the anthropologist C. Loring Brace, and the proponent is the forensic anthropologist George W. Gill. I agree with everything written by George W. Gill, and I will discuss my points of disagreement with C. Loring Brace, summarized in two fallacies. If you disagree with George W. Gill, then I am happy to hear your explanations of disagreement.

(1) Continuum fallacy. This fallacy is otherwise known as the "fallacy of the beard," and the example goes like this: "If the stubble on your chin grows another micrometer, does that make it a beard? Suppose it grows another micrometer, and then another micrometer. Can you choose any one of those growth points as the point where your facial hair went from mere stubble to a beard? Yes? Then there is only the tiniest difference between stubble and a beard. No? In that case, beards are impossible. They don't exist."

The author chooses as an example a trip travelling up the Nile River and observing the people, to see if there is any visible boundary between the black Africans and the Arabs. If you cannot choose any point on that trip where the people plainly go from black African to Arab, then "race" has no coherent biological meaning.

He could make the same argument that "color" has no coherent physical meaning, because, although there are plain differences between one color and another, you cannot choose any point along the color spectrum of a rainbow profile where "blue" goes to "green", or where "green" goes to "yellow", or where "yellow" goes to "red." Colors, therefore, are merely cultural, having no correspondence to physical reality.

(2) Fallacy of convergent evolution. This is a fallacy that was pioneered by creationists, and it goes like this: "The model of evolution you have constructed is disorganized and subjective, because widely-different branches of your proposed ancestral tree have shared phenotypes."

The fallacy is that even phenotypes common to two populations (i.e. the author cites sickle-cell anemia) can have completely separate genotypes. Convergent evolution happens when two different populations (who tend to share similar environments) evolve adaptations with similar phenotypes. In the case of sickle-cell anemia, it is a phenotype with differing genotypes among different populations (different populations adapted with the same phenotype but with different genotypes), each to adapt against malaria. The genotypes are the most relevant reflections of evolution, not phenotypes. Convergent evolution exists with genes, too, but it is more rare. That is why you can have your DNA tested, and you can be told with high certainty your "geographic ancestry" (they won't call it "race"). Such tests have a 99.8% correspondence with the "race" you believe yourself to be.

By definition stubble apart from the moustache area is a beard. Stubble may serve as a description for short hair but can also be termed as a beard since there is no defined way to distinguish. The exception is that when referring to long hair that is without a doubt a beard. Indeed stubble or very trimmed beards tend to be more fashionable than beards.
However it is likely that we are only one distinctive race. There is a possibility that some of us have Neanderthal ancestry in a very small percentage of our genetic make up.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Can this be demonstrated based on scientific achievement regarding astronomical observations and mathematics amongst different populations across the globe between 30000 BCE and 1000 ACE?

Of course it can. Consider the civilizations created by the different races. The Mayans were using the concept of zero before the Europeans. Mayan astronomers could predict eclipses of the sun and the moon. The Chinese invented the compass, paper, gun power, and other things as well.

Two thousand years ago the Negro nations of Nubia and Ethiopia had created urban civilizations, but they contributed nothing to the international reputation of science and literature.

So they knew nothing of astronomy, had no calendar, no mathematics?

 

[Togo]

Of course it can. Consider the civilizations created by the different races. The Mayans were using the concept of zero before the Europeans. Mayan astronomers could predict eclipses of the sun and the moon. The Chinese invented the compass, paper, gun power, and other things as well.

Two thousand years ago the Negro nations of Nubia and Ethiopia had created urban civilizations, but they contributed nothing to the international reputation of science and literature.

So they knew nothing of astronomy, had no calendar, no mathematics?

And no architecture?

 

[Kharakov]

So they knew nothing of astronomy, had no calendar, no mathematics?

And no architecture?

You've got to remember, the environment we live in has a major impact on our scientific development, and influences which genes are more successful in specific areas.

 

[Jesse]

Race is an important biological classification. A person's race can be determined by appearance, and by DNA testing. The different races differ in average ability levels and behavior. These differences are durable across space and time. They are genetic, and have been caused by evolving in response to different population pressures.

There is not really any good evidence for different races differing in genes contributing to mental aptitudes--looking at the historical achievements of civilizations in different regions is hardly a scientific procedure, an ancient Roman adopting a similar procedure would have concluded the people of Western Europe to be inherently uncivilized and mentally inferior, for example. And for a good argument against concluding things like group differences in IQ scores must have a genetic explanation, as opposed to being purely cultural, see this article which looks at large changes in IQ that occurred in various European populations in the last century or so.

 

[Duke Leto]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcY3W5WgNU[/YOUTUBE]

 

[fromderinside]

time for pseudoscience or elsewhere......

 

[ApostateAbe]

time for pseudoscience or elsewhere......

Unlikely, as this really is social science, even if you don't agree with it. If PBS can tolerate both the correct side and the incorrect side of a scientific debate, without pushing the correct side into a poisoned well, then there is a possibility you can too, if only slight.

 

[fromderinside]

time for pseudoscience or elsewhere......

Unlikely, as this really is social science, even if you don't agree with it. If PBS can tolerate both the correct side and the incorrect side of a scientific debate, without pushing the correct side into a poisoned well, then there is a possibility you can too, if only slight.

have you ever looked at a scientific article? There is most always a straw man set up to be destroyed by findings. So it is with the straw man of race.

My meaning in my previous post was toward the scientific utility of the discussion which has become nil.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Unlikely, as this really is social science, even if you don't agree with it. If PBS can tolerate both the correct side and the incorrect side of a scientific debate, without pushing the correct side into a poisoned well, then there is a possibility you can too, if only slight.

have you ever looked at a scientific article? There is most always a straw man set up to be destroyed by findings. So it is with the straw man of race.

My meaning in my previous post was toward the scientific utility of the discussion which has become nil.

If the argument is less about the ACCURACY of a science and more about the UTILITY of it, then I think it encourages too much myopia, and I don't think that is where the debate should be, given the choice. Regardless, the study of human races ties into human genetic diversity generally. The most obvious immediate use of the science of race is to guide medical doctors toward accurate diagnoses. Family history, age and behavior patterns of the patient all have intermediate affects on disease frequencies, and so does race. Much of the debate is focused on sickle-cell disease among black Africans or Tay-Sachs disease among Jews, but there is actually a long list of diseases that are significantly more common among whites. Here is such a list:

http://www.ranker.com/list/caucasian-race-diseases-with-this-risk-factor/reference