the differences are mostly superficial. which is why our tribal instincts latch onto "races" as a way to organize humans. because outward appearance is the first impression we get of someone.

but in terms of genetics there aren't really distinct human races. even in terms of the superficial outward differences there aren't really distinct races but more like a variety of physical characteristics that our pattern-seeking brains tend to try to use to categorize people.

thinking....

Race is a social construct. Its a construct that we as society conceptualize and define according to physical attributes, traits, culture etc. It has nothing to do with genetics or biology which is different.

For example,

"Black" and "White" are racial social constructs.

These are superficial constructs that do not tell the whole story of the biology of the person's ethnicity or culture which is why I said I would personally ask someone what race they identify as versus subjectively giving my own interpretation based on their skin tone or physical appearance.

Interestingly in Russian the word "Negr" (same root as negro) is the most acceptable term, while being called black, while not necessarily an insult, is less polite.

The phenotypical differences are great enough to categorize them as different races. This shouldn't be confused as trying to categorize them as different species, think of it more like categorizing it into different dog breeds. Genetically, a chihuahua and a great dane are as similar as a black or white person, but their appearances are strikingly different enough to categorize them differently. Kill two white dudes, two black dudes, and two Asian dudes. Once you've defleshed the skull (don't know how to do this, go ask Carpe), you'll notice that there are differences in the nasal cavities, forehead, and jaw structures among other things. The white skulls, the black skulls, and the Asian skulls will be more similar to the other skull in their own racial categorization than the other four skulls. This kind of **** goes down in forensics all the time, and race isn't a social construct at that point, it's an identifier of a victim of a crime or whatever. Saying that the genetical similarities disprove the concept of race is like saying that a science fiction novel and a biography of Napolean are the same because they both used the same word processor.

I think it's fine to identify race because there are enough consistent characteristic differences between the main three races that you can be right (though interracial breeding has made this a tad more difficult) often. As long as it's not used to belittle or elevate a certain race, I see no problem with it.

#anthropologybanter

yea... these are the types of differences that tend to manifest due to different environments. if you watch the videos i posted it goes over this. my point wasn't that race doesn't exist but that it is dictated primarily by these physical characteristics and not by any distinct genetic groups
wtf lol that's probably the stupidest analogy i've ever heard

i don't care either, people will always have tribal mentalities

I think that's an oversimplification. Sure, there are far more similarities than differences, but were the different races to have developed independently over a few more thousand or millions of years then they may very well have branched off into legitimately different species (thankfully that did not occur). ATM they're still different enough to make scientific distinctions relevant.

My only hope is that the different races co-mingle over time to the extent that racial differences do end up becoming completely scientifically irrelevant. If everyone was more or less "the same" then that would end or at least minimize racism to a certain degree. Diversity is great and all, but when it leads to the kind of racial conflicts we still have to deal with in this day and age I think it's the greater of two goods. Not to mention that mingling all of our genes would probably strengthen the human race's genetics (e.g. white people developing the immunities to malaria, skin cancer, and Sickle-Cell Anemia that black people have, and vice versa with heart disease and diabetes).

So come on Soul Flower. Let's make us a mocha baby in the name of peace and understanding. Our child will start a band combining old school soul and death metal. Teach those goofy, white, nu metal "rappers" how to truly combine racially diverse music.

^gene flow between human populations around the world prevents that from happening. same as any other species.

i should clarify when i say social construct i don't mean it's just made up. but basically it's just a categorization of humans we did before we knew anything about genetics and we did it pretty much on the basis of physical attributes. that doesn't mean the differences aren't real but they are as far reaching as many people tend to think they are.

i saw you saying that negroid etc might be a more useful scientific term but pc won't allow it. maybe it is useful as frownland said for anthropological reasons but there isn't any distinct 'negroid' genetic group. basically our environment shapes a number of our more visible attributes in a more direct way and so there's a good deal of variety in the physical attributes humans have as they have to survive in different environments. but these differences are most apparent in measuring superficial attributes and resistance to certain regional diseases.

Negroid is a racial slur. I really hope and pray the Batlord was joking with that....

mot according to the internet and science, both are never wrong

Science was based on western principles that were heavily rooted in racism and prejudice. The internet is contaminated with ignorance and foolery so I disagree with you.

is that right

But it's not necessarily a racial slur. I think it's been replaced with "congoid", but I'm pretty sure that's purely a name change just so it doesn't sound offensive, and therefore means the exact same thing. If you want to interpret negroid as racist then I can't do anything about that, but that doesn't mean you get to judge others for not sharing your particular views on language.

Even the urban dictionary doesn't refer to the word as a slur.

Urban Dictionary: negroid

Yes sir.

Just been reading up on The History of Science, and it's basically been around forever

I am not interpreting it as racist. It has been used as a racial slur.

That doesn't mean that it has not been used as a racial slur.

^Like how retard and idiot both started off as scientific terms but became slurs?

Ja, science totally comes from a place of Western bias.

Correct, so they're not different species. There're still great enough differences between various races that they need to be addressed though. That's not really the question though, is it?

Well not really, we all have an extremely similar genome, but across races the way that it's expressed is quite different. So this is quite similar to having a similar source such as a word processor to result in two entirely different outcomes, like a scifi or a biographical novel. It doesn't apply to your point because I had misinterpreted it, but if you were saying that there's little to no basis for basing race off of due to lack of genetic disimilarity like I thought you were, the way that it's expressed (or used, in the word processor analogy) is enough to dictate a different race.

Lol. Well.

No. I do not mind being called black. /THREAD

So if it's not racist then it's still potentially a perfectly valid scientific term. So why shouldn't it be usable? Lot's of things about science offend people, but that doesn't mean that it should bow to social pressure.

Well










Well














What have we here?

I see scientific ignorance and agenda-based tomfoolery.

Anyone else?

The Batlord said that the word is not used as a racial slur because its a scientific word and I am telling him that it is. Just because it is a scientific word doesn't mean it has not been used as a racial slur.

Ja? You from D.C.?!?! lol

Me Me Me Me!!!

See Soulflower, when you say things like

People might very easily misinterpret that as you flat out calling science racist.

If you were a minority and someone called you that, trust me baby you would not like it....

But there are certain aspects about Science that is racist especially old science that did not have a lot of research on diversity and multiculturalism.

If Batlord was a minority, people still wouldn't talk to him so I don't see your point.

Science was around before the honkys hit the scene

Those anthropological terms such as Caucasoid and Negroid were created in the field of anthropology.

The study of human evolution.

And differences between cultures, biologically and culturally.

And how diverse the human race is.

And to see what those differences and similarities are.

The term was not racist for the time, but anything related to the word negro has gained the capacity to be used as a slur because times have changed. It sounds racist to you because of cultural norms that have stigmatized words relating to racial slurs, regardless of their original use and intent.

So please stop bashing science.

Science can suck it. Racist son of a bitch.

My point is its important for everyone to be open minded and not be bias. Its easy for someone who is part of the "majority" to say "Oh that is not a racial slur its a scientific term." They wouldn't know because they haven't been called it.

The Honkeys created the scientific method.

*facepalm*

Did you even read what I said?

well it seemed earlier that there was the mistaken idea that the races are derived from genetics. if you want to say you can categorize humans by skull size into different distinct groups then i wouldn't argue with you, as i don't know all that much about human skulls. but that criteria is not necessarily biologically significant enough to justify the classical notions of race.

i mean even if you go below the level of species, as i said earlier, into sub-species, there aren't distinct human genetic groups that we can classify in this way.

so i don't disagree that you can roughly group people into races based on physical characteristics. but those groups are only significant to us because our tribal instincts latch on to these physical discrepancies as an easy way to categorize other humans.



i guess it seems dumb to me because a book is all about its content where as a human being is not necessarily all about its skin tone etc.

My bad, in the past I had only seen analogies where both situations were 100% identical to one another. I should have gone for that.

I like to thing of myself as very logical. Are you saying that I wouldn't be logical if I was in the minority?

Quit being so damned racist, Soulflower.

Nice response

But regardless the technical terminology of the word, I still believe science is discriminatory against minorities. I study a social science so I know this.

Also, I am not interpreting the word as "racist"

I have seen it used a racial slur.

Looks like we owe a lot to muslims though https://explorable.com/who-invented-...entific-method
and even everyone else http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...entific_method