February 21, 2006
Fads and Fallacies In The Name Of "Race Does Not Exist"
By Steven Goldberg
For the past three decades many social scientists have, for reasons of both compassion and ideology, promulgated "explanations" increasingly divergent from those believed by the common man—to the credit of the common man and the shame of these social scientists.
Thus, it has become widely-accepted, in some cases to the point of received wisdom, that the "concept of race is genetically meaningless.” In the New York Review of Books, Andrew Hacker has stated flatly that "Most of us agree that the notion of 'race' is a human creation, with no basis in genetics or biology." [August 14, 2003] Indeed, there are more than a few biologists who, when speaking in public, say this.
I have yet, however, to find even one biologist who can, in private, look you in the eye when making the claim.
The claim that the concept of race is meaningless is difficult to refute because it is inevitably supported by no argument at all, simply by the mere assertion that belief in the existence of race is "pseudoscience," or by argument so effervescent as to defy presentation sufficiently coherent to permit refutation.
Nonetheless, one can sense the arguments implied, however chaotically, by the claim in order to demonstrate that the arguments are wholly without merit.
Race is perhaps best-defined as, in Gregory Cochran’s words, "a group that has been subject to strong enough selective pressures for long enough, with low enough gene flow, to end up demonstrably different from other groups."
Note that, even if it were true that manifestation of these differentiated characteristics were, like the spectrum of light, virtually entirely continuous, this would not call into question the existence of race. Just as one can distinguish red from blue, one can distinguish Zulus from Norwegians.
(Perhaps the most ridiculous argument that "race" has no genetic meaning is one found on the internet. The genetic basis of race is denied because "races can’t interbreed" while Blacks, Whites and Asians can. But for a hundred and fifty years biologists have used the term, "race" to describe sub-species that can interbreed. The internet author might as well have argued that there are no "families" by claiming that families can not interbreed.)
With reference to any specific characteristic, the characteristics of a race are, of course, statistical, not absolute. They permit many "exceptions" (though far fewer exceptions than would be required to cast doubt on the statistical regularity). Thus the existence of tall women and short men does not cast doubt on the accuracy of the statistical observation that "men are taller than women."
Those who deny the reality of race will often invoke the fact that, whatever the characteristic in question, the range is greater within race than between races. This is true of nearly any variable for which two groups are compared. But to deny a statistical group difference on this basis would force one to claim that it is meaningless to speak of "men" and "women," or statistical differences between them, because the height difference between the shortest man and the tallest man, or between the shortest woman and tallest woman, is far greater than the few-percent difference between the mean heights of men and women.
This example makes clear the key fact that a small difference in means often complements a huge difference at the extremes; how many seven-foot tall women does one see? The difference in running speed between the average white and average black male is only a few percent, but virtually all of the two hundred fastest men in the world are black. And it is on the upper tail of the curve—the extreme—that public perceptions—stereotypes—are based. That this "within-group" argument is so often made is a measure of the desperation of those who wish to deny that which is undeniable.
But silly attempts to avoid the reality of race are not limited to the second-rate. For example, Craig Venter, one of the seminal figures in the cracking of the genetic code has said: "Geographical origin (ancestry) appears to be more relevant than a person's self-identified race." But while any distinction between geographical origin and self-identified race is relevant in rare individual cases—there aren’t that many blond Mexicans—on the level of entire populations, it is less than insignificant: most Mexicans are mestizos.
Similarly, race deniers often point out that only "a tiny percentage of genes" differ between groups. This is also true—but it is also true of human beings and chimpanzees. Human beings and other primates share nearly all genes (as they do the digestive, respiratory, etc. systems that express these genes).
But it does not lessen the physical and behavioral differences between human beings and other primates. Nor does it demonstrate that the relatively few differing genes are not primarily responsible for the differences. Human beings and chimpanzees may share nearly all their genes, but it does not take a geneticist to distinguish a human being from a chimpanzee or to conclude that a difference in a very few genes makes all the difference.
What is clear from the currency of such arguments is that the impulse compelling these social scientists is not the concept of the genetic basis of race in general (an issue previously of interest to hardly any of these social scientists save the anthropologists). Instead, their motive is a fear of the common man’s distinguishing American whites from American blacks, although this is a distinction that mere eyesight not merely justifies, but mandates. (Tellingly, not a single black student of mine fails to find risible the claim that there is no such thing as race. Only the occasional white social science major claims to find this contention sensible.)
Thus, it is often claimed that "we can’t tell one’s race from the genes." In fact, this is not true. The appropriate DNA analysis can now pinpoint racial heritage with an extraordinarily high statistical accuracy. Genetic identification of race identifies with racial self-classification over ninety-eight percent of the time. But try getting a research foundation or The New York Times to acknowledge this.
(Though things may be loosening up a bit. A study by the Center for Human Genetics at the University of California compared the computerized genetic profiles of 3,636 individuals enrolled in a large-scale study of hypertension with the individuals’ self-identified race. The computer matched the self-identifications for 3,631 of the individuals. [American Journal of Human Genetics, February, 2005.])
But even if it were true that we did not know anything about the genetics of race, it would still be true that it is not necessary to know the precise mechanism responsible for an effect before suspecting that there is such a mechanism. If ten people take a pill and all ten keel over, you have a strong suspicion that there is something in the pill that is inimical to human biology, even if you know nothing about the nature of the pill or human biology. Often the presence of a mechanism is strongly indicated by a host of independent lines of indirect evidence. Indeed, it is often such evidence that indicates where to look for the cause, as the discovery of many bacterial and viral causes of diseases attests. This is certainly the case with many aspects of race.
It is occasionally argued, for example by Jared Diamond, that skin color is but one of many properties that can be taxonomically invoked. Other taxonomies would, for example, find northern Europeans and some black African groups as members of the "lactase-positive race" and southern Europeans and other black African groups as members of the "lactose-negative race." [Race Without Color, By Jared Diamond, Discover, November 1994]
Again, this is true, but it does not call into question groups defined by other variables and differentiated correlations between these groups in those other variables. That categorization by some other variable could result in Tutsis and Japanese being in one category, and Kenyans and Vietnamese in another—but this casts no doubt on the correctness of placing Tutsis and Japanese in separate categories when height is the variable in question, and strongly suspecting that differing genes account for the differing heights of Tutsis and Japanese.
In fact, of course, the criterion by which people identify race is geographical ancestry as manifested in skin color. And this is most reasonable and, indeed, unavoidable.
Note that our putting Tutsis and Japanese in different groups with reference to height does not require that, at this point, we make any assumptions about any other similarities or differences between the two. Or that we posit hereditary difference other than that relevant to height.
It might, or might not, turn out that these two groups differ for hereditary reasons in many other ways. If they do, at that point we may, or may not, see that there is heuristic value in viewing Tutsis and Japanese as representing two different racial groups, in some more general sense that comprehends many hereditary differences.
Thus it is clear that the overwhelming numbers of great sprinters are of West African descent. Similarly, a disproportionate number of great long-distance runners are of East African descent. Neither of these groups excels in the other’s specialty. If one wishes to understand these facts, one can, indeed must, see genetic differences between the groups as central. Whether the groups differ in any other ways is irrelevant—if running excellence is what one wishes to explain. All this is true whatever the characteristic difference between groups that is being addressed.
In other words, you can't abolish the correlation between membership in a specific group and a specific characteristic—or the possibility that genes play a role in the association of group and characteristic—merely by pointing out that there are other characteristics that would divide the human population differently.
To do so is akin to playing the lawyer who says: "You may have five witnesses who saw my client commit the crime, but I have seven who didn't."
More specifically: The group of Americans who possess a genotype giving some "black" skin differs statistically from the group of Americans who have "white" skin. Clearly these groups differ from each other genotypically and phenotypically. This is why the groups can be physically distinguished from each other. It is a social reality that leads us to term even the light-skinned "black" person "black", but we can nonetheless distinguish the group of people thus termed "black" from the group of people thus termed "white" and can address differences between these two groups.
Finally: There is an argument that has become virtually received wisdom in current sociology: all important differences (racial, gender, etc.) are caused by socioeconomic factors—when you control for such factors, the issue of group membership and possible non-socioeconomic causes essentially disappears. (Lip service may be given to other factors, but the analyses proceed as if only the socioeconomic are relevant.)
But even if we assume that controlling for group membership and possible non-socioeconomic factors does have this effect (which it often does not), the fallaciousness of this reasoning should be obvious.
Imagine a society in which the only criterion for reward is height. The taller one is, the higher one's socioeconomic status.
In this hypothetical society:
Men, on average, are taller than are women (as they are everywhere.)
Men, on average, have higher socioeconomic statuses than do women (as a result of their greater height)
But when men and women with the same socioeconomic status are compared, the men and women are found to be of equal height (as they must, since height is the only criterion for socioeconomic position).
The sociological fallacy would force us to falsely conclude that the men of the society are taller than the women because the men have a higher socioeconomic status. The question that is relevant, of course, is why there are more tall men (resulting in a higher average male socioeconomic status), and the physiological answer in this case is obvious.
One could write a book on the astonishing degree to which such fallacy and misrepresentation have come to infuse sociology as ideology has replaced the search for truth. (Indeed, I have just written such a book: Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences ).
Perhaps this would be of no great moment were it only the discipline of sociology that suffers. After all, there are still sociologists who do serious work on group differences. Readers who are serious about these issues will find them.
Most disastrous is the effect of all this misrepresentation on the possibility of our solving our most serious social problems. Understanding a problem may not assure its solution, but not understanding the problem virtually guarantees our not solving it.
These matters are too important to permit ideology, no matter how well intentioned, to block the path to truth.
As James Baldwin wrote: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
Steven Goldberg [email him] is Professor Emeritus of The City College of The City University of New York. His books include The Inevitability of Patriarchy, When Wish Replaces Thought, Fads and Fallacies in The Social Sciences, and Why Men Rule. His work has appeared in Ethics, American Anthropologist, Yale Review, Psychiatry, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Measure, Chronicles, Journal of Recreational Mathematics, National Review and many other journals.
Steve Goldberg seemes to still buy into the colloquial races.
Human Races: Definitions and Problems.
Given the variety of ways in which ‘‘race’’ is used in the biological literature, it is hardly surprising that a significant element of the debates surrounding the existence of biological human races is the particular definition of ‘‘race’’ used. Indeed, some authors have argued against the existence of biologically significant human races by suggesting that there is no acceptable ‘‘race’’ concept in bi- ology more generally (e.g., Futuyma 1998). However, as noted above, the vagueness of the biological race concept does not prevent its useful appli- cation in many areas of nonhuman biology. The question is not whether biological ‘‘races’’ exist; rather, it is which biological race concepts can be most usefully applied to human populations.
Insofar as one considers appeals to biological races to be attempts to pick out incipient species, it seems perfectly clear that there are not currently any human ‘‘races.’’ There are no extant populations of our species that are plausible candidates for being incipient species. Further, the current distribution of genetic variation within H. sapiens implies that at no time in the past were any of the (currently extant portions of the) pop- ulation evolving independently (see Templeton 1999 and cites therein). While the Homo genus very likely generated incipient species during its history (and perhaps even full-fledged separate species), none of these currently survive (see Tattersall 1998 and cites therein). The evolution of contemporary Homo sapiens was likely not marked by populations that at one time had independent evolutionary trajectories but exist today as part of the larger population (Rogers 1995; Templeton 1999; Waddle 1994).
Rather, human evolution seems to have been marked by extensive gene flow. While this implies that there are not now, nor ever were, bio- logically significant human races that corresponded to populations that had been phylogenetically separate for some significant period of time (contra Andreasen 1998), it does not imply, as some authors have argued, that there can be no significant biological races in humans. As we saw above in the case of ecotypes, adaptive genetic differentiation can be maintained between populations by natural selection even where there is significant gene flow between the populations. Templeton (1999), for example, notes that gene flow sufficient to ensure that distinct populations evolve together as a single species is compatible with the populations having distinct, genetically mediated, phenotypic adaptations. For exam- ple, he notes that there are populations of Drosophila mercatorum in Hawaii that ‘‘show extreme differentiation and local adaptation’’ yet have significant gene flow between them.
Lewontin and Gould have made much of the fact that there is relatively little genetic variation in Homo sapiens (compared at least to other mam- mals; see Templeton 1999) and that most of what genetic diversity is known to exist within Homo sapiens exists within (rather than between) local populations (see, for example, Gould 1996; Lewontin et al. 1984), and these facts are cited repeatedly in arguments concluding that there are no biologically significant human races. But the idea that this data might imply something about the existence of biologically significant human races emerges from a focus on the wrong sort of biological races. The relative lack of genetic variation between populations compared with within population samples does imply that the populations have not been reproductively isolated for any evolutionarily significant length of time. But of course, this fact is irrelevant for the consideration of races based on adaptive variation; in this case, if there is extensive gene flow, genetic variation can be mostly within groups, rather than between groups, as variations not related to the adaptive phenotypic differences between the populations will be spread by gene flow relatively easily. The question is not whether there are significant levels of between-population genetic variation overall, but whether there is variation in genes associated with significant adaptive differences between populations (see our discussion in Kaplan and Pigliucci 2001).
So, if we conceive of races similarly to the way ecotypes are conceived of, it is clear that much of the evidence used to suggest that there are no biologically significant human races is, in fact, irrelevant. As long as dif- ferences between populations can be maintained because of their adaptive significance, races can exist despite extensive gene flow between popula- tions. The questions, then, are as follows: Do such conditions exist in the human case? and: Did such conditions exist during the course of human evolution such that the resultant differences might still be detectable today (though perhaps no longer actively maintained)?
Before addressing those questions, it is worth taking a short detour to consider why so many authors writing about the (non)existence of human races have made use of such a strong definition of race (i.e., assumed that biologically significant races must be populations separated from other populations by serious barriers to gene flow). Part of the reason undoubt- edly has to do with the history of the term ‘‘race’’ as it is applied to humans. Insofar as one is asking a question not about the existence of biologically significant races (of the sort that exist in certain species of Drosophila, for example) but rather about the existence of a biological justification for the ‘‘ordinary’’ language racial categories, the concept of race appealed to will have to be quite strong. As, for example, Appiah (1996) and Hull (1998) point out, the races colloquially appealed to are generally supposed to differ from each other not merely in one particular adaptive trait, but in many traits simultaneously (a kind of racial ‘‘essen- tialism’’ and, as Hull notes, a throw-back to typological thinking). Knowing someone’s (biological) race, on this view, would permit one to make ac- curate predictions about a wide range of traits they possess—as Keita and Kittles put it, that ‘‘visible human variation connotes fundamental deep differences within the species, which can be packaged into units of near- uniform individuals’’ (1997, 534). This, however, will likely be impossible if there is little systematic between-population genetic variation compared to variation within the populations in question, and is in any event bio- logically unrealistic. Very few if any species have subpopulations that form groups of that sort, and the search for such groups seems to be a holdover of pre-Darwinian typological thinking (Futuyma 1998). So while the amount and distribution of genetic variation is largely irrelevant to the question of whether a species is divided into biologically significant races generally, it is relevant to the question of whether ‘‘ordinary’’ conceptions of folk racial categories in humans have any biological support, and to this question there is a broad consensus that the answer is ‘‘no.’’ Biology, it has been rightly noted many times, cannot underwrite the sort of racial con- cepts that have usually been applied to humans.
This answer, though, is often mistakenly thought to imply that there are no biologically significant human races at all, or at least that folk races must be utterly unrelated to biologically interesting human populations. While it seems clear that biologically meaningful races will not correspond particularly well to folk racial categories, this does not imply that folk racial categories are completely orthogonal to biologically meaningful racial categories. However, insofar as there is evidence that biologically significant human races exist, that evidence points towards most biolog- ically meaningful human races being quite a bit smaller (and far more numerous) than are folk races; the idea that those groups picked out by folk races and those populations that form biological races will not, in general, correspond is therefore likely correct. And of course, as has already been noted, insofar as folk races are supposed to pick out populations that systematically differ from each other over a wide range of genetic and phenotypic measures, biology provides no support for the existence of such populations (and indeed, provides evidence that no such populations exist).
Confusion about these points is rampant, and far too much of the literature surrounding the biological basis, or lack thereof, of human races misunderstands these points. To take a trivial example, consider the controversy surrounding Entine’s book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dom- inate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk about It (2000). While we agree with the critics who stress the dearth of hard data to support some of Entine’s specific claims (Hoberman 2000), our main concern with the debate is that, as Michael Shermer notes, Entine’s evidence, even taken at face value, does not support the contention that blacks dominate sports at all (Shermer 2000). Rather, even if all that Entine claims is true, the only conclusions that can be drawn are that smallish particular populations generate the athletes that dominate particular sports. In other words, as even Entine admits, ‘‘blacks’’ are not better runners—rather, some West African black populations produce more world-class sprinters than the proportion expected from their population size and the assumption of random distribution of athletic talents among humans would generate, and Kenya (especially the Nandi region) similarly produces far more than its share of great marathon runners. It is certainly possible that these regional differences in the production of top athletes reflect regional differences in athletic ability (or, better put, differences in physiology more generally), and it is even possible that these differences are the result of local adaptations to particular environmental (including perhaps long-term cultural) pressures. If this is so, on an ecotypic conception of race, there would in fact be ‘‘races’’—and indeed, races associated with athletic ability.
However, what one must remember is that the races in question do not, in this scenario, have much to do with folk races. If instead of phrasing the issue in terms of ‘‘race,’’ Entine had put it in terms of local adaptations within smaller populations (ecotypes), his book would likely have been seen as far less controversial. Further, the sorts of evidence necessary to support his conclusions would have been far more obvious as well. Just as one can gather evidence that particular ecotypes of the mustard-like weed Arabidopsis have the particular features they do in virtue of the particular selective pressures they’ve been under (e.g., Pigliucci and Byrd 1998), so too could one gather evidence in the case of human ecotypes (albeit with all the usual problems of ethical and practical restrictions on human exper- imentation, etc.).
None of this should come as a surprise. The issue is not, as Gould and others have been fond of claiming, that skin color is only ‘‘skin deep’’ but rather that ‘‘skin color’’ is an ecologically important—not a phylogeneti- cally significant—trait. If skin color had evolved only once, such that populations with different skin colors formed at least partially mono- phyletic populations, we would expect to find many other phenotypic differences associated with differences in skin color; some would be the result of different selective regimes, but some would no doubt be the result of, for example, drift. The reason that skin color is not well correlated with other phenotypically important features is, at least in part, that skin colors evolved independently several times, and often evolved in populations that were not genetically isolated from other populations (Diamond 1997)— similar skin color therefore represents not a shared ancestry but rather similar selective pressures. The only thing that fair-skinned people share is that, at one time or another, their ancestors lived in an area with low levels of sunlight and ate a diet poor in vitamin D. As there were many such areas and many such times, fair skin says little or nothing about phylogeny.
But while skin color is not well correlated with other phenotypic traits of interest in humans, there is, despite Gould’s claims (Gould 1996) to the contrary, no guarantee that particular populations of humans will not, due to particular features of their environment, share particular distributions of adaptive behavioral (including intellectual) traits, as opposed to simple physical traits. To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence that such populations exist, nor are there reasons to suppose that such populations must exist. Given the difficulty with testing hypotheses regarding the adaptive significance of behavioral tendencies in humans simpliciter (Lewontin 1998), the lack of evidence for behavioral (and/or intellectual) ecotypes in humans is not surprising. But it is intellectually dishonest to move from the lack of evidence for such differences to claiming that there is evidence for an absence of such differences, a move all too often made (oddly enough, both by Gould and by some of his opponents in ‘‘evolu- tionary psychology’’ (see, for example, Gould 1996, Tooby and Cosmides 1990)). The conviction that there are no such populations emerges not from research or principled arguments, but rather, we suspect, from fear that to even suggest the existence of such populations is to fall into the worst sort of racist thinking.
This is unfortunate. The study of the relationship between adaptive traits in humans and expressed behaviors is difficult enough without these limitations. Indeed, if there is any systematic variation in adaptive behav- ioral traits between human populations, discovering and studying such variation might provide one of the best entries into the study of human behavioral traits as adaptations more generally. Many of the most obvious problems with discovering and testing adaptive behavioral traits in humans are at least much less severe with respect to traits that vary systematically between human populations (see Kaplan 2000). Obviously this is very speculative: Again, there is no evidence that such populations exist, and if they do, discovering them and properly testing the adaptive hypotheses may yet prove impossible given our limited ability to test adaptive hypoth- eses regarding humans more generally. But looking for such variation does not commit one to racist thinking; the populations displaying such variation would very likely not correspond closely to folk races.
Overlapping Adaptions, Clinal Variations, and Human Races.
Some authors have argued from the existence of sizable populations with phenotypes intermediate between those associated with particular folk races to the conclusion that there are no biologically significant human races (see, for example, Keita and Kittles 1997). But this is just what we would expect to find if these ecotypic races are sometimes clinal in nature. A cline is a pattern of gradual variation of one or more characters, usually— but not exclusively—along a latitudinal or altitudinal range. Again, gene flow can be extensive through clines, as long as selective pressures are sufficient to maintain the genetic differences associated with adaptations to the ecologically important conditions (e.g., Jordan et al. 2001, Futuyma 1998). Given the wide geographical distribution of human populations over evolutionarily significant periods of time (Templeton 1999), it would be surprising if human populations did not show any clinal variation in eco- logically important characteristics. The key points made above regarding ecotypes—that they may or may not be phylogenetic units and may or may not limit gene flow—also hold true for clinal variations, as does the ob- servation that an individual may simultaneously be a member of multiple different ecotypes (as in multiclinal variation).
Of course, this implies that insofar as we focus on an ecotype con- ception of race, there will not necessarily be a unique ‘‘race’’ to which any given member of a population belongs. Any given individual may in fact belong to a number of different ecotypic races, and/or be a member of one (or more) intermediate population(s) within a (series of) clinal distribu- tion(s). However, this is hardly an unexpected complication in a discipline like biology, characterized by a high level of complexity of both the object of study and the conditions that induce variation in that object. The problem posed by clines, then, is no different from that posed by any other gradual transition, and provides no reason to reject the possibility of the existence of biologically significant human races. Similar problems, after all, face any definition and practical application of the concept of species itself; nonetheless, biologists have not given up the use of that most controversial biological category just yet (Howard and Berlocher 1998).
Ecotypes and Folk Races.
As we have seen, insofar as biologically meaningful races are conceptualized as populations more like ecotypes than like incipient species, many of the arguments purporting to show that there are no human races miss their mark. While in nonhuman biology the term ‘‘race’’ has been and is being used in a variety of ways, the best way of making sense of systematic variation within the human species is likely to rely on the ecotypic conception of biological races. In this sense, there are likely human races (ecotypes) of biological interest. But again, biology provides no support for the very strong, essentialist-style conception of ‘‘race’’ that has, both historically and at present, underwritten racism (of both the individual and institutional varieties), and indeed, biology reveals that the assumptions underlying such a conception of race are false.
This does not, of course, imply that our folk conception of race is not significant—while it does not pick out populations of biological interest, it does pick out populations of deep social and political interest. These populations do not, in fact, have many of the features they were historically supposed to have, but that does not prevent the application of the folk concept of race. Nor, we believe, should it. As long as the folk racial category to which one happens to belong is systematically related to other important aspects of one’s life, there is obviously still a need to pay attention to race in formulating, for example, social policy. And, it need hardly be said, it is. In the U.S., and in at the very least many other contemporary societies, one’s (folk) race is systematically related to one’s chances of acquiring most (if not all) important goods—everything from education to money to self-respect.
While it is valuable for biologists to note that the essentialist conception of human races has no support in biology whenever particular claims are made that seem predicated on such a conception (e.g., Herrnstein and Murray’s 1994 work on race and intelligence), they should not fall into the trap of claiming that there is no systematic variation within human populations of interest to biology. Studying human ecotypes could yield insights into our recent evolution, and perhaps shed increased light onto the history of migrations and gene flow. To some extent, this is already happening (see Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994, etc). However, the ambiguity surrounding definitions of ‘‘race’’ and the politically charged atmosphere surrounding race in humans has hampered research into these areas, a situation from which neither biology nor social policy surely benefit.
Posted: Tue 28 Feb 2006 01:16 Post subject: Re: Fads and Fallacies In The Name Of "Race Does Not Exist"
G-Man wrote:
Steven Goldberg wrote:
it has become widely-accepted, in some cases to the point of received wisdom, that the "concept of race is genetically meaningless." In the New York Review of Books, Andrew Hacker has stated flatly that "Most of us agree that the notion of 'race' is a human creation, with no basis in genetics or biology." [August 14, 2003] Indeed, there are more than a few biologists who, when speaking in public, say this. [¶]
The claim that the concept of race is meaningless is difficult to refute because it is inevitably supported by no argument at all, simply by the mere assertion that belief in the existence of race is "pseudoscience," or by argument so effervescent as to defy presentation sufficiently coherent to permit refutation.
Steven Goldberg's argument for the truth of "race" (by which he means "the endogamous color-line 'races' we've inherited from the Chesapeake region's Anglo-American colonial experience, & ever since then by dent of unending legislation imposing this claim in various & sometimes threatening ways) is reducible to his pleading these collective group, social "differences" must exist because he subjectively sees them. (I.e., he "sees" them after a lifetime, probably since infancy, of being told that these "races" exist, and his being indoctrinated to recognize "races" -- very like an irrational certainty induced by hypnoses.) Goldberg's manner of argument from false analogy evidence, seasoned with his fervent visual belief would have fitted in with the legal reasoning which led to the conviction and execution of "witches" at Salem's witch trials in 1691. Just so, the very next year, 1692, neighboring Virginia Colony enacted the world's first law criminalizing marriage across a racial "color-line." This "anti-miscegenation" act (1 yr adjacent to witch trials) probably did the most to launch the notion that one human race is not number enough of "races" for taxonomically classifying world humanity.
Goldberg, in his defense of "the races" claims falsely that scientists cannot refute the truth of alleged "different races." Actually the fatal flaw in "races" taxonomy is the impossibility for Goldberg or anyone else to prove existence of two human "races" (prove just two), at least since the death of the last Neanderthal roughly 20,000 years ago. It is unfortunate that we find ourselves in an inverted time when scientists are challenged to disprove the "races" which nearly everyone believes fervently that they "see" (hypnotically, as belief in witches?), but which no one can prove exist.
Proof which is needed to settle this question (i.e., proof sufficient for reasoning minds, whether or not Goldberg is persuaded) must rest on some foundation. Since life and death are foundational principals of life, it follows that necessity of the existence of "the races" is necessary foundation for proving the existence of two (i.e., more than one). This foundation on necessity (for life to exist) works to prove the existence of two sexes, male and female. Just so, 19th Century folk belief held that "blacks" and "whites" couldn't live in each other's definitively hot or definitively cold climates. Wrong. Since the 1940's or earlier this is known to be false. "Different" racial features are not vital to human survival. Coupled with universal intra-human fertility, fitness of progeny, it is clear that Nature rules no necessary cusps or break-points in the human racial somatic continuum needing or supporting labels for "different races."
Goldberg argues instead for a statistical rule of reasonable partitioning into "different races." He offers varying tallness of peoples. So far as I know we have no taxonomy of people specifically for tallness in any sense comparable to "the different races." The world ekes by with no formal taxonomy of tallness. I can think of many other examples of society establishing useful if arbitrary divisions. (E.g., age of consent & various other age-lines, also shoe & pants sizes, etc.) These are social, or here legislated approximations rooted in statistical norms. Goldberg fails to explain why "the races" are needed? (We've shown two "races" aren't biologically necessary.) I think they are not conventionally needed sufficiently to justify the unbelievable harm they caused and still do. Moreover, "the races" stand apart by being conceptually rooted in endogamy (instead of in makeup cremes, health needs, or anything useful) -- their notion is that "the races" arose from people inbreeding analogous to domesticated pigs in a breeding kennel, hence implying the impropriety of exogamy. Ultimately Goldberg's "races" are an endogamous caste concept alleging essential "difference" (inequality) such that "bloods" should not "mix," not be "tainted" or "mongrelized."
Goldberg's "different races" are a problem of language (esp. legislation). So far scientists have generally failed to engage with this problem of a "biological" principal which exists in language (as statutes, & in minds, as hypnotic perception) instead of in tissues. Scientists such as Jared Diamond have only confused the issue by talking down "races" as if they exist, but "differ" only in small "insignificant" ways, and imploring society to self-inflict "color blindness" for the good of the collective.
I argue that one robust human race does in fact exist. And by not splitting us into spurious named (noun) "differences" (and also remembering that different does not mean equal, and moreover different sufficiently characterizes the animal species which cannot interbreed; hence "different" is defamatory applied practically the same way to peoples); then we might be free to see, admire, and explore our racial diversity in our full-color glory.
George
Normally I avoid discussing the reality of bio-race because the only people who advocate the notion are so ignorant of biology that they cannot even define the term. But George has done such a good job of refuting the article that envy compels me to add a scientist’s perspective.
There seem to be two categories of pro-“race” argument. First, is the “Tooth Fairy” argument. It says that biological race must exist because so many ignorant people believe it with utter sincerity. This is akin to saying that the Tooth Fairy truly exists because she lives within the spirit of millions of mothers who withdraw deciduous teeth from under their children’s pillows and leave coins instead. Such an argument is not worth commenting on.
Second is the forensic anthropologist argument. Forensic anthropologists can study a skull and tell whether the person was White or Black to about 80% probability. How is this possible if race does not exist? The answer is that forensic anthropologists in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Senegal, Chad, and Ethiopia cannot do this. In fact, they cannot do it anywhere but in the United States. Such a determination is possible in the U.S. only because U.S. society has been incredibly successful at maintaining two endogamous groups on the basis of physical appearance. What I can do with a ruler and a pencil (I got an “A” in the class) is tell with 80% certainty whether the person would have been categorized by U.S. society as Black or White, based upon their appearance.
But the most egregious flaw in the above essay is that it violates the rule of falsifiability. The way to persuade a scientist of something is to tell him or her what evidence would disprove your theory.
For example, when I say that northern European depigmentation happened no earlier than 5 kya, I explain that if anyone should ever find evidence (a portrait, a painted sculpture, a description) of a person thus melanin-deficient from before that date, I will be proven wrong. No one has.
For example, when I say that the ODR was enforced against U.S. Whites to keep them from befriending oppressed U.S. Blacks during the Jim Crow terror, I explain that if anyone should ever find evidence of White families who befriended or defended Blacks and yet were not challenged to prove their Whiteness, I will be proven wrong. No one has.
For example, when I say that Bigfoot is a fraud, I explain that if any should ever drag a Bigfoot carcass into a lab for dissection, I will be proven wrong. No one has.
When I say that bio-race does not exist, I explain that if anyone should discover a way of grouping humans such that the ratio of inter-group to intra-group variation peaks (does not continue to rise steadily until you have 5 billion groups of one person each), then I will be proven wrong. No one has.
But the above article says, “I will not admit that I am wrong, no matter what evidence you summon.” It is like the Bigfoot nut who says, “no one has disproved the existence of Bigfoot.” Sorry. Science does not work that way. If you want me to listen to your theory, then tell me precisely what it would take to disprove it. If you cannot do this, buzz off.
Last edited by fwsweet on Thu 09 Mar 2006 13:54; edited 2 times in total
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Thu 02 Mar 2006 14:03 Post subject: Races
fwsweet wrote:
Second is the forensic pathologist argument. Forensic anthropologists can study a skull and tell whether the person was White or Black to about 80% probability. How is this possible if race does not exist? The answer is that forensic anthropologists in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Senegal, Chad, and Ethiopia cannot do this.
Hi,
I read once that antropologists have a hard time classifying skeletons by race as well. For instance, the most difficult task was to separate "caucasians" from "australoids", because they were very close in the shape of the skull. Do you know if that's true?
Particularly in the Ainu of Japan some people say they are whites and others that are closer to Australian Aboriguines.
Posted: Wed 08 Mar 2006 14:52 Post subject: Re: Races
oevega wrote:
I read once that antropologists have a hard time classifying skeletons by race as well. For instance, the most difficult task was to separate "caucasians" from "australoids", because they were very close in the shape of the skull. Do you know if that's true?
I have no personal experience with Aboriginal Australian skulls. My training regarded only the three "races" recognized by the U.S. judicial system: White, Black, and Asian. I imagine, however, that Aboriginal Australian skulls can be distinguished from most European skulls in that the former have slightly more prominent brows and a lower face that extends slightly farther forward.
Ultimately, such determination depends upon what you mean by "races" and how many you think there are in a global (as opposed to a U.S.) sense. For example, if you see just three global "races" (as does the U.S. judiciary), then you conflate Indonesians and Manchurians, who are less similar in physical measurements than, say, Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans. If you define four "races" by splitting Asians into northern (sinodont) and southern (sundadont) branches then you solve one problem, but now you conflate !Xoisan, Watutsi, and Bantus, peoples whose measurements are not even similar. If you define six global "races," then your measurements are more consistent, but still not replicable. Twelve "race" gives better results. A hundred "races" gives better yet, a thousand "races" improves measurement replicability, ten thousand is even better, and so forth.
In other words, if you divide humanity into the three U.S. "races," then the differences between any two of those "races" (Whites and Blacks, say) are far less replicable, obvious, measureable, or reliable, than the differences between sub-groups (sinodonts and sundadonts, say) within any of the three "races". This non-replicability problem is lessened if you go with six "races". Replicability improves even more if you define ten thousand "races". But (with one exception, explained below) the problem never goes away.
Obviously, any definition of "races" that results in the different "races" (Black and White, say) being more similar than subgroups within each of the "races" is not persuasive to a scientist. And so, finding clusters of traits that define human groups objectively has been the holy grail of physical anthropology for over two centuries. It is still being pursued.
In mathematical terms, the question is: "Is it possible to categorize H. sapiens into groups such that inter-group variation (physical differences between groups) is greater than intra-group variation (differences between sub-groups within the groups)?" Hundreds of scientists have sought to do this. All of those investigators, without exception, found that the more "races" you define, the more objective and replicable the measurements get. But (with one exception) you never reach a point where inter-group variation exceeds intra-group variation.
Carleton S. Coon offers an early example of the hopelessness of this pursuit. As William can explain, Coon (the greatest craniofacial anthropometrist of the 20th century) took this path and discovered many dozens of distinct "races" in Europe alone. He was still working on defining the thousands of "races" in sub-Saharan Africa when he died.
Noah A. Rosenberg offers a present-day example of the same doomed grail-chase. See http://backintyme.com/admixture/rosenberg01.pdf. Rosenberg used meticulous statistical mapping programs in powerful computers to analyze hundreds of DNA markers in many thousands of subjects worldwide. He proved that if you tell the computer to indentify three clusters ("races") in humankind, the results are better than if you tell it to find two clusters. Assuming four clusters is better yet, five is even better, and six is best of all. (Rosenberg quit at six.) The statistical trend found by the computer is unmistakeable. There is no end to this chase (with one exception).
In short, even if you divide our species into millions of tiny "races," you will always find that there is more variation between sub-groups within each of those millions of "races" than there is between the "races" themselves.
The exception? You will reach the holy grail of "racial" definition if you divide humankind into 6.5 billion "races" of one individual each. Only then does inter-group variation exceed intra-group variation. The variation between different individuals is greater than the variation among the cells of each individual.
In conclusion, you can show objectively, replicably, mathematically, that our species comprises only one "race" of 6.5 billion individuals. Or you can show that we comprise 6.5 billion "races" of one individual each. But no one has ever found anything in between.
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Wed 08 Mar 2006 19:59 Post subject:
George wrote:
Scientists such as Jared Diamond have only confused the issue by talking down "races" as if they exist, but "differ" only in small "insignificant" ways, and imploring society to self-inflict "color blindness" for the good of the collective.
Yes, I noticed this when glancing through his work and watching TV programs hosted by him. His theory seems to contain contradictory elements. He is basically saying that we should all get along despite our "racial" differences. I noticed that Spencer Wells doesn't share this belief.
Frank wrote:
Carleton S. Coon offers an early example of the hopelessness of this pursuit. As William can explain, Coon (the greatest craniofacial anthropometrist of the 20th century) took this path and discovered many dozens of distinct "races" in Europe alone. He was still working on defining the thousands of "races" in sub-Saharan Africa when he died.
Yes, indeed. Also, in the beginning pages of his book (which I glanced through but will read in depth later) it appears he states, not in so many words, that biological races as such do not really exist, but "racial" differences can be useful in distinguishing populations from one another, and this is what "races" really are: people with common physical attributes. Of course, as we know, physical attributes, such as nose width and eye shape, vary within so-called "races," and are shared by so-called "races."
His view of the White "race" is quite a broad one, and does not include just Nordics or just Europeans. This is why it puzzles me that White Supremists and other such types attempt to draw support from his work. I have obviously not read the entire book yet, but have glanced through enough of it to say that I feel he is often misquoted, misunderstood, or misrepresented, and was merely observing what he believed to be true, or else he was using other scientists' works and drawing from their conclusions.
Guenther's work, on the other hand, is to me nothing more than regurgitation on paper. He finds "Negroness" in darned near all southern Europeans. He attempts to corroborate this by depicting various people and captioning the pictures with phrases such as "Mediterranean with Negro strain." This "Negro strain" isn't observable to anyone I have spoken to. He is clearly a White Supremist, and what's more, a Northern European Supremist. I'm sorry I spent the twenty bucks for this ca-ca.
In one footnote he says something like: "The Portuguese are so heavily Negroid that various African peoples, like the Swahili, when referring to the Europeans as a whole, always say, 'The Europeans and the Portuguese,' because they feel the Portuguese are more like themselves, and they have much less respect for them than they do for other Europeans."
There is so much wrong with that statement I don't even know where to begin. The presence of Black slaves in Portugal never amounted to more than a few percent, as corroborated by historical sources and DNA admixture tests. Sub-Saharan alleles are so sparsely distributed in this population that they virtually never align to create a "Negroid" individual. I seriously doubt Guenther had ever been there. Furthermore, if sub-Saharan Africans viewed the Portuguese as more like themselves, and looked down on them for it, wouldn't that mean they looked down on themselves? What garbage!
Guenther doesn't stop there, though. He says that all southern Europeans have a "Negroid" strain, and mentions that Italian navvies have a strong "Negroid" cast to them. Again, pure trash. He says similar things about France, Spain, etc.
I wonder why he ignores the documented Black slave population in England (and their subsequent absorption). What would he say to the finding of "Negroid" DNA in Britons? I am surprised, however, that he "detects" a Malay strain in the Dutch.
Omar wrote:
I read once that antropologists have a hard time classifying skeletons by race as well. For instance, the most difficult task was to separate "caucasians" from "australoids", because they were very close in the shape of the skull. Do you know if that's true?
Coon states that Veddoids are very similar to Australoids and Negritos. In another section of the book, he alludes to the similarities between White groups and Veddoids. So, yes, it looks as though you are correct here.
Frank in a few posts up wrote:
Second is the forensic pathologist argument. Forensic anthropologists can study a skull and tell whether the person was White or Black to about 80% probability. How is this possible if race does not exist? The answer is that forensic anthropologists in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Senegal, Chad, and Ethiopia cannot do this. In fact, they cannot do it anywhere but in the United States. Such a determination is possible in the U.S. only because U.S. society has been incredibly successful at maintaining two endogamous groups on the basis of physical appearance. What I can do with a ruler and a pencil (I got an “A” in the class) is tell with 80% certainty whether the person would have been categorized by U.S. society as Black or White, based upon their appearance.
The physical attributes Americans consider important in determing "race" are not always the same as those of other cultures, as we have discussed. Yet we think our system of grouping populations has more merit than those of other countries, and sometimes we try to impose our views on others.
Last edited by William on Wed 15 Mar 2006 17:49; edited 1 time in total
Scientists such as Jared Diamond have only confused the issue by talking down "races" as if they exist, but "differ" only in small "insignificant" ways, and imploring society to self-inflict "color blindness" for the good of the collective.
Yes. Scientists find it as hard to escape childhood preconceptions as do non-scientists. The difference is that those scientists who specialize in the phylogeography of human variation apply the rules of replicability and so conclude that "race" is an illusion produced by appearance-based social ostracism. Scientists who specialize in other areas, like Diamond (an ornithologist) and Dawkins (an evolutionary biologist), revert to saying, "'Race' must exist because I can personally see racial differences." They address the issue without objectivity, specialized training, or comparative experience. The discomfort this causes the reader is an aspect of the "appeal to authority" dilemma. Non-scientists often rely on the the opinions of experts. Scientists, on the other hand, are trained to rely solely upon replicable findings. Opinions are worthless. Findings are golden.
William wrote:
Coon's view of the White "race" is quite a broad one, and does not include just Nordics or just Europeans. This is why it puzzles me that White Supremists and other such types attempt to draw support from his work.
Yes. Coon was too smart to subscribe to the U.S. popular culture view of "race." As a scientist, he tried to define "races" based upon replicable skull measurements. This resulted in his including many sub-Saharan populations (and many Bantu speakers) in the "Caucasoid subspecies." Here is his subspecies classification scheme:
Notice that his "Caucasoids" include the people of Senegal, Gambia, Chad, Burkina Faso, ancient Nubia, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Again, his classification was based on replicable objective skull measurements, not on such popular-culture traits as skin tone (indeed, the people of Burkina Faso, whom Coon considered Caucasoids, are the darkest-skinned people on earth). Regarding the racialists who fraudulently claim Coon's support, Afrocentrists are just as bad as White supremacists. Both groups claim that Coon scientifically proved their own bizarre personal notions of "race." Neither gives any indication that they actually read anything that the man wrote.
In my opinion, Coon was a great but flawed intellectual. He was great because he pursued the physical-anthropological holy grail of clustered human variation with single-minded dedication until the day he died. He never found it, of course. But his findings (not his conclusions) did more to destroy the "race" notion than anyone else's. He inadvertently caused millions of young students a half-century ago (myself included) to say, "Holy smokes! If Coon cannot not find objectively replicable 'races,' then no one can!"
Coon was flawed because he was a sincere "racist" in the classical Jim Crow sense. He honestly believed that African Americans should be segregated from decent society and not be allowed to vote. This was not a biological thing with him. He had no problem with foreigners of mostly African ancestry. But he concluded that the U.S. African-American culture was hopelessly pathological. He believed that Black children could never live up to the responsibilties of citizenship, due to intellectual and moral poisoning by their own parents.
Last edited by fwsweet on Thu 09 Mar 2006 17:59; edited 4 times in total
ODR members: This thread has swerved away from socio-political advocacy into biology and genetics. Accordingly, unless anyone has an objection, I am moving it to "America's Admixed Population."
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Fri 10 Mar 2006 16:11 Post subject:
Frank wrote:
The difference is that those scientists who specialize in the phylogeography of human variation apply the rules of replicability and so conclude that "race" is an illusion produced by appearance-based social ostracism.
That would naturally explain why Spencer Wells feels as he does.
Frank wrote:
Again, his [Coon's] classification was based on replicable objective skull measurements, not on such popular-culture traits as skin tone (indeed, the people of Burkina Faso, whom Coon considered Caucasoids, are the darkest-skinned people on earth).
Is a misinterpretation and twisting of this, perhaps, where the idea of the "true Negro" came about? I've heard ridiculous claims made by White supremacists that the advanced civilizations of northern Africa that certainly had a sub-Saharan component to them, e.g., Egypt, Ethiopia, etc., did not really contain a "Negroid" component, because the African-appearing people weren't "true Negroes."
Frank wrote:
Regarding the racialists who fraudulently claim Coon's support, Afrocentrists are just as bad as White supremacists. Both groups claim that Coon scientifically proved their own bizarre personal notions of "race." Neither gives any indication that they actually read anything that the man wrote.
Absolutely! Their were many White supremacists, Nordicists, and Afrocentrists on the old Racial Myths board who constantly claimed to be supported by Coon's work. It is now crystal clear to me that none of them actually read Coon. They probably came across isolated, out-of-context blurbs on the Internet that appeared to support their notions, and jumped on them. I'd be willing to bet that none of them actually owned the book.
I should revise what I said about Hans Guenther a bit. Although what I wrote above is true, in that he was a White supremacist and Nordicist, and that he wrote ridiculous things about Portuguese, Italians, and other Mediterraneans, in other areas he appears to make some sense. Sometimes he appears to contradict himself. Despite what he said about the Portuguese in that one section, in another, he says that their physical features are common those of circum-Mediterranean peoples. He says something similar about Italians, despite in another section saying there is a "visible Negro strain" there. But then again, he believes there is a "visible Negro strain" all over the Mediterranean, as he says in yet another section.
I don't know what he is trying to say, but the idea that there is a truly visible sub-Saharan strain in Portuguese and other European Mediterraneans is ridiculous. I would agree with you, however, that since Mediterraneans in general have dark complexions, hair, and eyes, and since the Mediterranean was populated with some sub-Saharans and other types after the last glaciation, all circum-Mediterranean peoples probably are an intermediate type between sub-Saharans and Nordics.
I guess what I like about Guenther's book are his maps and graphs on pigmentation, hair texture, eye color, etc. His are a bit different than Coon's, but similar in some respects.
Incidentally, I have a friend who is an out-of-print book dealer, and he says a library that contains the Races of Europe book will be closing soon, and he thinks he can get it very cheap (because he is buying in bulk quantities), and will not mark it up, since he knows me. Since you are looking for one, would you be interested? He mentioned a figure of about $15-$20. When I bought mine, he didn't know of an inexpensive available copy. But this library deal just came up.
Incidentally, I have a friend who is an out-of-print book dealer, and he says a library that contains the Races of Europe book will be closing soon, and he thinks he can get it very cheap (because he is buying in bulk quantities), and will not mark it up, since he knows me. Since you are looking for one, would you be interested? He mentioned a figure of about $15-$20. When I bought mine, he didn't know of an inexpensive available copy. But this library deal just came up.
Absolutely! Yes indeed! Tell me how to contact him or tell him how to contact me (fwsweet@backintyme.com). Thanks.
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