[ExI] Race Biology (was Larks vs Night Owls)

The Avantguardian avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 20 06:59:06 UTC 2008


My last post on the subject, Jef. :)

--- Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ### Assholes will always find a reason to hate an outgroup. This is
> completely irrelevant to the biological question of whether you can
> divide
> humans into large groups related by descent.
> 
You can, Rafal. But when you look at the data with unclouded eyes, or
barring that, have a computer running a bayesian clustering algorithm
do it for you, you see that that those groups have little to do with
the commonly accepted notion of race. When you do, according to these
guys who have done it, you end up with groups but they have nothing to
do with commonly accepted notions of race:

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v29/n3/full/ng761.html

Unless there is a race wherin you would lump Ethiopians, Norweigens,
Ashkenazi Jews, and Armenians. I don't think "black" or "white" quite
cuts the mustard here. Asians likewise aren't a "race". Of course they
excluded a whole lot of cultures from their experiment such as latinos
and pacific islanders. You want to have medically relevant genetic
races, don't cop out with the "Sons of Noah" crap.

> 
> ### I really despise the idea that somebody would denounce and
> suppress
> life-saving research, if that research acknowledges the biological
> reality
> of race.

The biological reality is very different from the racist fantasy.
That's all I am saying.


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Life is the sum of all your choices."  
Albert Camus


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