Joined: 31 May 2005 {Posts: 66 } Location: South Carolina
Posted: Wed 08 Jun 2005 22:46 Post subject: Questions of the -oids
I am sure that you are familiar with the former three race system. As an American, I have been used to the rigid and rather racist classification systerm that we have here. I do know that scientists used to go by the three race system: Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. Now I know that some go by this system of race classification: Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Capoid, and Khoisanoid.
That is where the source of confusion lies. Caucasoids are considered members of the so-called 'white' race, yet many Caucasoids live in Asia like Persians, Uzbeks, North Indians, Russians, and Azerbaijanis. Negroids, Capoids, and Khoisanoids live in Africa and the Caribbean. Australoids live in Australia and Oceania, and Southern Asia. Mongoloids live in the Americas, Central Asia, and Eastern Asia. But there is a lot of confusion as to whether Arabs and Berbers are really Caucasoids and are all Caucasoids 'white' as we Americans view them. Are negroids, capoids, and khoisanoids really of the 'black' race? How would Americans, Latin Americans, Canadians, and Caribbeans be classified? I know that there is a website at one time with people who were known as the Amerigroids because of the unique histories and racial and ethnic mixture of people in this hemisphere. Do you agree that there should be an Amerigroid classification, as most white and black Americans are not pure Caucasoids or Negroids. Nor are most Amerindians, especially in the Deep South pure Mongoloids. Are Amerindians really Asians or are they a different racial group from Asian? Or are all of these oid classifications really obsolete? I know that there are a lot of questions, but I am just curious as I usually find that people view race differently around the world and that people have always been mixing for centuries.
Posted: Fri 10 Jun 2005 11:09 Post subject: Re: Questions of the -oids
gera2561 wrote:
Or are all of these oid classifications really obsolete?
Yes. Worse yet, they cannot be objectively defined in science.
Those terms are useful today only regarding U.S. folklore. For instance: Caucasoid: someone that a typical American would consider "white." Negroid: Someone that a typical American would label "black." Capoid: a meaningless term used only by the disciples of Carleton S. Coon.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Sat 11 Jun 2005 15:53 Post subject: Re: Questions of the -oids
gera2561 wrote:
How would Americans, Latin Americans, Canadians, and Caribbeans be classified? ... Are Amerindians really Asians or are they a different racial group from Asian? Or are all of these oid classifications really obsolete? I know that there are a lot of questions, but I am just curious as I usually find that people view race differently around the world and that people have always been mixing for centuries.
Hi,
Well, Latin Americans have roots in several so called "races", the main ones, ordered by their relative proportions, are Southern Europeans, Native Americans and South of the Sahara's Africans, but there are also large populations of Germans, East Asian and Middle East Asians. Mix all together very well and you have us: Latin Americans. Actually, we do consider ourselves a People with a single history and culture, but very rich in genetics.
Native Americans are genetically related to Siberians, a people that even have some similar cultural background. Native American gene pool is an important part of the Hispanic peoples, so it has assured its survival that way.
Race is an obsolete concept because it is impossible to define in scientific terms. We don't have races but populations. We don't have blood but gene frequencies. The concept closest to race in science is the cline. This say that populations vary slowly between neighbouring peoples. A person resembles very much the neighbour from a mile away, but is a little bit different of the one that live a hundred miles away. And can be absolutely different of the one that lives 5 thousands miles from home.
Follow a path from Nigeria to Israel and you will se how people slowly changes from very Black to the Arab-semitic type. Continue your route to Sweden and you will notice how people changes slowly one more time to reach the Nordic type. If from there you take the transiberian railroad to reach China you will notice once again this slow variation in genetic frequencies.
Isolated populations are not stable. So it is no way that the divide between Blacks and Whites in the U.S. and South Africa will remain as such in the future. People will mix to reach a stable population. In the future, if there were not for immigration, the U.S. population will look like Brazil today.
There are not races, just genetic pools asociated with geography, which change with time affected for fertility and migration. Science can analyze the distribution of certain genes, and it has found they don't match. Is like saying that the genes of the blue eye don't follow the same pattern like the ones of straight hair, or of the genes that control long faces. Humans have hundred of thousands of genes, and all vary independently. That's why only their frecuency have a real meaning.
Posted: Sat 11 Jun 2005 18:02 Post subject: Re: Questions of the -oids
oevega wrote:
Native Americans are genetically related to Siberians...
This has been disproven. See Kolman CJ, Sambuughin N, Bermingham E., "Mitochondrial DNA analysis of Mongolian populations and implications for the origin of New World founders" Genetics 1996 Apr;142(4):1321-34.
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