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== This article needs to be cleaned up. ==
older discussions may be found here ], ], ], ], ]


We absolutely need more emphasis on the social significance of this topic, and much less bloat consisting of regional definitions of whiteness. This article is severely cluttered with the latter. ] (]) 12:10, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


== Missing countries ==
== Talking About Race is Necessary ==


Lots of missing countries in the census information. Germany, and many others. Request for those to be added in please. ] (]) 03:33, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
If we are going to talk about white people, asking what is white? is a perfectly natural and relevant question. In order to answer, we need some background info about race, so I suggest:


:Germany has a problematic history with racial classification. At least according to Misplaced Pages, such information is not collected by today's German government. Really, that whole section is a mess, not least because of the unresolvable problem of differing definitions of "white people". The article would arguably be better without the section. ] (]) 04:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
2 arguments against race:
AAA statement and maybe dna squencing guy's opinion
Explanation, what does AA statement mean? Briefly...


== Can we fix the percentages of African countries? ==
2 arguments for race:
Leroi and a part of Edwards
Brief explanation.


The percentages in African countries are way off. For example Kenya says 42,800 White people is 2% of the population. This would imply Kenya only has a population of 2 million people. Malawi and Morocco are also inaccurate (0.06% and 0.03% respectively) Can we change the percentages of these? Or possibly remove it for being such a small portion of these countries populations? ] (]) 04:16, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Conclusion, by quoting the conclusion of comprehensive nature article.


== Questionable map ==
The article, currently is too empty... ] 19:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
]
The main map placed in the page is very inconsistent and inaccurate for specifically Latin America. Places such as Jalisco and the north of Mexico are shown with almost no European ancestry even though the ancestry of the region is comparable to the southern cone of South America and Costa Rica. Not only that, one state would have predominantly European ancestry whereas a bordering state has almost none which makes no sense considering the demographic history of Latin America, even more so for Mexico where 1/3-2/5 (30-40%) of the population are European descended. I am also not sure how Chiapas and Yucatán have more European ancestry than the central north region of Mexico. For Colombia as well I see it’s very inaccurate as Nariño and the southern Andes of Colombia are somehow predominantly European even though the people there are indistinguishable from Ecuadorians, and your basis being that “40% are white in Colombia and 47% are mestizo” despite the fact that those numbers are made up and aren’t proven by any source and most sources state in fact that 20% are European, 50-60% re mestizo and the rest are ethnic populations, I recommend reading into the sources in ] and adjusting the map from that. There are also other places in the world that have European ancestry that the map doesn’t show. ] (]) 23:56, 30 October 2024 (UTC)


:And this is based from several sources across the specific Misplaced Pages pages related to these ethnic groups. I recommend you view ] instead as it provides a better insight to the actual demographics of the region. ] (]) 00:14, 31 October 2024 (UTC)


::The over-arching problem here is ], specifically ]. Images from Commons are not a hack to bypass the need for reliable sources. That's what this map represents. Further, the map has a very, very long list of qualifications in its description at ], including a paragraph that starts "{{tq|This is NOT a map of the White race, just an "European ancestry" map.}}" None of this context was included, it was just presented as if it were an accepted bland fact.
Currently the article is biased:
::Unlike many of these racial/ethnic maps on Commons, this one at least appears to be made with good intentions... or maybe not. There is a lot of racist junk science on Commons, so it's hard to tell. This map would need far, far, far more context and many reliable sources before it would belong in this article, and especially in the lead. ] (]) 00:23, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
:::The Page ] also has this exact map, what shall we do with it for now? ] (]) 01:52, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
::::Thanks for mentioning that. I have removed it and started a discussion at that article: ]. ] (]) 04:07, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
:::Just adding two cents: I'd agree that the recently removed map is a mess of OR and SYNTH. Given differing definitions of whiteness and even "Europeanness", this would likely be an irresolvable problem for *any* map attempting to display a global distribution of white people. Also, a lengthy set of qualifications would defeat the purpose of a simple at-a-glance map graphic, and without qualifications the map is more misleading than informative. The article is fine without it. ] (]) 04:28, 31 October 2024 (UTC)


== Semi-protected edit request on 19 November 2024 ==
ex 1: "Whether any individual considers any other individual as white often comes down to whether the person looks white; however this is a very subjective judgement."


{{edit semi-protected|White people|answered=yes}}
This is not cited and how do you know every individual's opinion? Maybe some individuals have genetic considerations. ] 19:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
In the 'Republic of Ireland' subsection, change the word 'ideontified' to 'identified' ] (]) 10:43, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
* Done. Thanks for catching that. ] (]) 12:11, 19 November 2024 (UTC)


== Large population tables ==
:Honestly I prefer to defer that discussion to the ] article.
:On your "example 1", there's no real definition of white. For me it's a synonim Caucasoid, what is quite historical and coincident whith what I learned in school in the 70s: five races: white (Caucasoid), black (Negroid), yellow (Mongoloid), red (Amerindian) and olive (Australoid). This symbology is also present in the ], though white has been replaced by blue and olive by simple green. Of course this is just a classical Eurocentric perception of race and, as the relevant article notices, the racial symblism of the flag was clearly promoted by Nazi Germany.
:Some people instead argue that "true whites" are only Europeans and some that even not all Europeans are real whites. For many surely South Asians or North Africans are not whites, but for other they are, regardless of skin shade because they are (at least mostly) Caucasoid. Some even have argued that Ethiopians are at least partly white.
:There's no real consensus, much less a scientific definition. And this is not the place for such Byzantine discussions anyhow. --] 06:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


This is regarding , which I have reverted.
Thulean your comment ''Maybe some individuals have genetic considerations.'' makes no sense. Are you suggesting that some people ask for a genetic test from others before they decide if they are white or not? Obviously people decide if someone is white by the way they look. A person cannot be ''genetically white'' and so it makes no sense to say that some people might take ''genetic considerations'' into account. ] 06:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


There are a lot of major problems here. Some of which are similar to what has already been discussed at ] above.
:"Genetically white"... that's funny.
:Still, may be was useful also to add a clear link to the article ].


One problem is that this table would combine many wildly different sources with wildly different methodologies and definitions of 'white people' and present them all as being directly comparable.


Another major issue is that many of these sources are not reliable. Sources need to be ], and other Misplaced Pages articles are not reliable sources, per ].
You people never heard of DNA tests which tells you ancestry? If someone's ancestry is not totally European, those people might not be considered white. People will usually go for looks but the quote is definately an unsupported blanket statement, not true for *everyone*. ] 12:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


Finally, combining these statistics at all is a form of ]. We use sources to form conclusions, not editors. Please do not restore this table until consensus has changed. ] (]) 21:33, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:First DNA tests don't tell a person their ancestry, how can it tell a person the names of their ancestors? Secondly do you really know anyone who takes a DNA test before declairing themselves white, or demands one from someone else before considering them white? Thirdly how does someone determine what ''white'' is from a DNA test? I've got a degree in genetics, but I know of no DNA test that can tell a person if they will be considered white by the society they live in. Fourthly there is a ]ern component to the European gene pool that is thought to have spread during the ], so nearly all European populations have a Near Eastern as well as an European origin, none of us is ''totally european'' except in the sense that we consider ourselves ''European'', and where does it say that only Europeans can be white anyway? I really don't think your arguments are very well thought out. ] 13:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


:{{ping|Domen von Wielkopolska}} Hello. This is the place to discuss these edits. Nothing about ]'s website indicates that it has a positive reputation for accuracy, fact-checking, or peer review. Further, the site doesn't consistently use the term 'white', so any interpretation of this source for this article would be ]. But again, it doesn't appear to be a reliable source in general. ] (]) 21:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::Well, the term 'white' is defined by this article itself ('White people') as 'those of mostly European ancestry'. So I just summed up the numbers of all native European ethnic groups listed in each Joshua Project country article. Anyway, how about I just restore the table for European countries as this table doesn't use Joshua Project among its sources (it is based on census counts and official estimates)? Of course I will use reliable sources directly instead of linking to other Misplaced Pages articles (per the ] policy). ] (]) 21:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::But I do think that the Joshua Project website is accurate and reliable for the purpose that it serves, namely: counting ethnic groups. I noticed only one obvious inaccuracy when researching their data, the number of . But it looks just like an error in adding one extra zero (it should be 13,900 instead of 139,000). This source confirms that they are "over 10,000": https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/papua-new-guinea/australia-papua-new-guinea-engagement . ] (]) 22:32, 3 December 2024 (UTC)


:::No, do not restore any part of this table until consensus is reached. As I said there are a lot of problems.
1) By ancestry, I meant continent, or region.
:::The Joshua project is not a reliable source in general, but it's also not reliable for whether or not any ethnic group is 'white' enough to be counted. Nothing is reliable for that, because it's impossible to do that in an impartial, objective way.
2) Do you know anyone who takes a DNA test to declare themselves male or female? No. Does that mean there is *no* genetic consideration in gender?
:::That's the deeper issue with these kinds of charts and maps. The article mentions "mostly European ancestry" but ''how much'' qualifies as "mostly" and who's doing the counting? As the article explains in the same paragraph, "the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view." If there are any reliable sources which specifically collect global data on the 'white race', those sources would be using a specific definition of 'white race' that applies to all countries and all cultures and can also be tested in some way. Such a definition doesn't exist, and this fundamental problem is much, much more difficult than it might seem at first glance.
3) That's why genetics is only *part* of the equation. A part that has been completely ignored in this article.
:::A paragraph in the lead says this: "Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing the reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "White race" as a social construct with no scientific basis."
4) Totally European is a wrong word then. However europeans have been isolated by genetic similarity:
:::The article directly says "this has no scientific basis", so to cobble together many different sources which all draw from different contexts, points-of-view, nationalities, ethnicities, etc. is ], and it's also a ].
5) Most people will consider Europeans or people of European ancestry as white. ] 13:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
:::To put it another way, attempting to apply hard data to something which lacks a scientific basis is pseudoscience. ] (]) 01:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

::::Okay. What I'm counting is actually the percentage of predominantly (80%+) native European-descended people, which is only colloquially known as "white people". But since there is no article about native Europeans worldwide, I wanted to add this data to this article. I define native European as descended from populations which inhabited Europe at least 1000 years ago. ] (]) 04:27, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*''Do you know anyone who takes a DNA test to declare themselves male or female? No.''
:::::As I said, that is original research. ].
:Haven't you just made my point for me? We don't do genetic tests to determine if someone is male or female, just as we don't do them to determine if someon is ''white''. If we make assumptions at all we do it by observation.
:::::Your definition of 'white people' is your own, but it's not easily falsifiable. But even it were usable, defining who is and is not European, what percentage of anyone's ancestry is what, how long a population has been in Europe, etc., and after all that, trying to count those people in consistent way... It's a very, very complicated task that involves a lot more than just poring over online government census records.
*''genetics is only *part* of the equation.''
:::::Regardless, again, Misplaced Pages isn't the place to publish that research no matter how its conducted. ] (]) 05:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:Genetics has nothing to do with ''the equation''. ''Whiteness'' has nothing to do with what continent one's ancestors came from, all our ancestors come from Africa after all, it is arbitrary to emphasise one period of our ancestry over another. ''Whiteness'' is a social and cultural identity, not a biological one, it also seems to be oddly exclusive.
:::::"I define native European as descended from populations which inhabited Europe at least 1000 years ago" is very clearly original research. Misplaced Pages should only report what reliable sources tell us, and not rely on editors' own definitions. ] (]) 09:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*''However europeans have been isolated by genetic similarity: ''
::::Throwing in another two cents, "attempting to apply hard data to something which lacks a scientific basis is pseudoscience" nicely and succinctly sums up one of several presumably irresolvable problems with attempting to add these tables. These tables are, at best, both ] and ]. They don't belong in the article. ] (]) 06:01, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:This citation doesn't claim isolation as far as I can see, indeed it claims that <blockquote>''The groups easiest to resolve were those that were widely separated from one another geographically. Such samples maximize the genetic variation among groups. When Bamshad and his co-workers used their 100 Alu polymorphisms to try to classify a sample of individuals from southern India into a separate group, the Indians instead had more in common with either Europeans or Asians. In other words, because India has been subject to many genetic influences from Europe and Asia, people on the subcontinent did not group into a unique cluster.</blockquote>
:::::I do agree that it is probably WP:OR but I disagree that it is WP:FRINGE because my definition of "white people" is pretty much the mainstream definition. Anyway, as I said my purpose was to count people of predominantly native European descent, and there is no article on Misplaced Pages which is about this topic, which is the reason why I came here to the "White people" article. But I now agree that these tables don't belong here, you guys have convinced me. Instead, I've published my research about this topic (population size of people of native European descent worldwide) on Academia.edu and on ResearchGate. I guess we can now archive this discussion. ] (]) 22:31, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:So what we are looking at is a cline, like in all genetic models. We rarely see clean genetic distinctions between populations, rather they ''merge'' into one another. This is a similar result to the one in the paper I provided.
::::::You are mistaken. Your definition is not the mainstream definition, nor even ''a'' mainstream definition. The lead of the article already explains some of the problems with such definitions. As I said before, creating a falsifiable definition of white people is much, much more difficult than it might seem at first glance. ] (]) 22:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
*''Most people will consider Europeans or people of European ancestry as white.''
:: As for Joshua Project, it is already used as a source in other Misplaced Pages articles, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/Zambo#cite_note-1 ] (]) 21:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:I can think of lots of British people, of British European ancesty, that would not be considered white. ] and ] spring to mind. ] 13:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
:::It turns out this has already been discussed many times on Misplaced Pages. See ]. ] (]) 22:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

:Thulean said: ''You people never heard of DNA tests which tells you ancestry? If someone's ancestry is not totally European, those people might not be considered white.''
:I say: You people (and I mean: you Thulean and whoever may think like you) should learn some genetics before you start ranting. Ancestry tests can only tell you the ] of some ancestors: your purely paternal line (father, father's father, etc.) and your purely maternal line (mother, mother's mother, etc.). No DNA test (at least not the usual ones) will be able to say anything about your father's mother or your mother's father. Start bulding your genealogical tree up to some 50 generations (aprox. 1000 years) and you'll see how tiny is the fraction of the ancestry that those tests are informing you about.
:I am a good example, while I don't know my exact DNA haplogroups, I'm pretty sure that my father's paternal lineage and my mother's maternal lineage are deeply rooted in the Basque Country. Hence I'm very likely to be R1b and H (or some other less common Basque haplogroups maybe). But a good deal of all other ancestors are not Basque but Spaniards or Italians. That would never be noticeable in any standard DNA test, and if these were Yoruba or Vietnamese, it would be exactly the same.
:By this reasoning of you, it's likely that many Black Americans (Afro-Americans or whatever the PC term) would have to be classified as whites. Not that I care but really that's not the perception in US society.
:By this reasoning of you also, in Europe we have at least several races, looking only at the Y-DNA haplogroups: Western Euros (R1b), their distant relative Indo-Europeans (R1a) (that also include a good deal of Indian and specially Pakistani, Afghan, Tajik and Kirgiz people), Balcano-Swedes (I), their relative Eastern Mediterranean (J), the Sibero-Uralics (N) and the Afro-Mediterraneans (E3b). Maybe I'm missing something... ah!: there are Germans with such rare haplogroups (among Europeans) as C (frequent among NE Asians and Austronesians, arguably a Hun legacy). How would you tell the difference between a Briton with E3b and a Sudanese with exactly the same haplogroup? How would you tell the difference between a Swede with R1a and a native of Uttar Pradesh with the same lineage?
:You people (and I mean you: Thulean from anywhere but Thule, that is Iceland) must learn first what you are talking about and then, only then, make the rest waste our time. --] 14:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


:That was really silly, Sugaar. There is no such *reasoning* that looks *only* at Y-DNA haplogroups. Autosomal DNA, mtDNA and all of their correlations is also considered. Also, Your personal attacks (nazi nick, "should learn some genetics before you start ranting") are becoming increasingly polluting. ] 15:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)



1) No I havent. I was just pointing out that despite we base our observations about gender on looks, we also know that it has a genetic basis. So it doesnt *just* come down to looks.
:Yes you have made my point for me. You are now just trying to change the question. Originally you said that people might take genetics into consideration when determining if someone is ''white''. I said this is not true, because we do not ask someone for genetic proof of their ''whiteness'' (and anyway no such thing exists, you just made it up as far as I can tell). Likewise we do not ask people for genetic proof of their gender. We make these observations on a social and cultural level, not on a biological one. You appear to now to be saying that whenever you meet a woman you insist on genetic proof that she is a woman before you accept this. I do not believe you. ] 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

::You seem to be not understanding what I say. I'm simply saying *looks* isnt the only consideration. ] 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
:::I never said that ''looks'' was the only consideration. There are social and cultural considerations. What I '''am''' saying is that genetics/DNA '''are completelly irrelevant'''. This is because we do not identify ourselves or others as ''white'' based on genetics, we do it in social and cultural contexts. As I said before, no one asks for a DNA test to be done before they consider someone ''white''. The way someone looks is part of it, but also cultural and social considerations are involved. What is true is that it is not biological. ] 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

2)Ancestry is subjective. You may need not to mention Africa as well since we all evolved from single cell organisms in oceans. Or you can say our "ancestors" are the singularity state at the Big Bang. Since we are talking about white race/"race"/population/whatever, the ancestry of whole species is irrelevant.
:I mentioned Africa because you mentioned that the continent of origin was important in determining ''whiteness''. I'm just saying that the continent of origin of all humans is Africa, so your argument makes no sense. Now you seem to be saying that there was life at the big bang, which is patently absurd. ] 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
::I wish you'd ask me to clarify what "I seem to be saying" because your cluelesness is ridiculous. Singularity is the beginning of everything, living or unliving, therefore I used ancestors in quotes. When we were talking about the origin of a race or population, you switched to a higher designation, which is species, so I switched to higher designations as well, to highlight your irrelevancy of pointing to Africa. ] 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
**''because your cluelesness is ridiculous.''
:::Please refrain from personal attacks, it reflects more on you than anyone else. If I fail to fully understand what you are saying then maybe it reflects an inability on your part to express yourself clearly. You do not seem to be able to stick to a specific point. ] 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
**''Singularity is the beginning of everything, living or unliving,''
:::No it's not, no one claims that living things began at the ''singularity''. Matter was created then, surely, not life. ] 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
**''When we were talking about the origin of a race or population, you switched to a higher designation, which is species,''
::No I didn't, there is no biologically recognised designation of ''race'', we are a single species, our species arose in Africa, it's where we're all from. This is the point, from a biological perspective '''there is no order lower than species'''. You were talking about the ''continental origins'' of people, I merely pointed out that the continental origin of all of us is Africa. It's not rocket science you know. Your comments about ''singularities'' were not comprable to mine about Africa, my comments were relevant, yours were petulent. ] 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
3)Noones denying the ambiguities. However they do not invalidate anything. To quote:

<blockquote>The identification of racial origins is not a search for purity. The human species is irredeemably promiscuous. We have always seduced or coerced our neighbors even when they have a foreign look about them and we don't understand a word. If Hispanics, for example, are composed of a recent and evolving blend of European, American Indian and African genes, then the Uighurs of Central Asia can be seen as a 3,000-year-old mix of West European and East Asian genes. Even homogenous groups like native Swedes bear the genetic imprint of successive nameless migrations.

Some critics believe that these ambiguities render the very notion of race worthless. I disagree. The physical topography of our world cannot be accurately described in words. To navigate it, you need a map with elevations, contour lines and reference grids. But it is hard to talk in numbers, and so we give the world's more prominent features—the mountain ranges and plateaus and plains—names. We do so despite the inherent ambiguity of words. The Pennines of northern England are about one-tenth as high and long as the Himalayas, yet both are intelligibly described as mountain ranges.

So, too, it is with the genetic topography of our species. The billion or so of the world's people of largely European descent have a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else; they are a race. At a smaller scale, three million Basques do as well; so they are a race as well. Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences.
</blockquote> And the citation from the earlier source also claims:

<blockquote>
Other studies have produced comparable results. Noah A. Rosenberg and Jonathan K. Pritchard, geneticists formerly in the laboratory of Marcus W. Feldman of Stanford University, assayed approximately 375 polymorphisms called short tandem repeats in more than 1,000 people from 52 ethnic groups in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. By looking at the varying frequencies of these polymorphisms, they were able to distinguish five different groups of people whose ancestors were typically isolated by oceans, deserts or mountains: sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas; East Asians; inhabitants of New Guinea and Melanesia; and Native Americans. They were also able to identify subgroups within each region that usually corresponded with each member's self-reported ethnicity.
</blockquote>

:I don't understand what these quotes are supposed to prove. Race is a meaningless concept in biology. It is difficult enough to come up with a universally accepted concept of ], let alone an accepted concept at the ] level. No one disputes that there are physical differences between peoples from different parts of the world. Most people who believe in ''race'' seem to think that ''races'' are discreet entities that are very different to each other. Biology shows us the opposite. So you found a biologist who thinks that race is a real biological phenomenon, there are probably more who disagree. Indeed the idea of ''race'' is really little more than genetic ]. But the human population is so genetically homogeneous compared to other species that there is little doubt that we are all derived from a bottlneck event that happened very recently. Differences between human populations are tiny and the extent of polymorphism is very small in humans. Race is a social and cultural phenomenon, you cannot claim it is exclusively a biological one in contradiction to all biological evidence. ] 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

::Whether what I or you claim is irrelevant. The point is that this issue is controversial. That's the point of quotes. However this article reflects that race and whiteness is a social concept and that's the consenssus. But there is no consenssus and thats why this article is biased. ] 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
:::I think there is a consensus that ''whitness'' is social. You are conflating ''race'', which is itself a disputed concept (most biologists do not accept it), with ''skin colour''. ''Whitness'' is not synonymous with an ''European race'', and this is whay you are saying. Your quotes about ''race'' above are about just that, the dispute as to whether ''race'' exists as a biological concept, but this article is not about ''race'' as a biological phenomenon, it's about light skin colour. I cannot help but feel that you are very confused. Maybe you are not and have a lucid understanding of this, but you are not explaining yourself well enough for me. ] 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

4) So you are saying European ancestry is entirely irrelevant when one discusses white? ] 14:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
:I'm saying that there are many people of european ancestry that would not be considered ''white''. This is the thing about the idea of ''whiteness'' it is oddly (and possibly uniquely) ''exclusive''. I may have seven out of eight white European great-grandparents, but if I have a single Black great-grandparent and my skin colour is not seen as ''white'' then I am excluded from this category. Conversely I may have more non European ancestors than European, but if my skin colour is sufficiently light I may pass as ''white''. So yes, in many respects where one's ancestors come from may be irrelevant. ] 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

::However, majority and in some definitions, all of whites have a majority European ancestry. Those "pass as white" cases seem to be a exceptions. ] 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
:::How do you know? This is little more than your opinion. If you take a look at the paper I posted earlier '''', you will observe that in eastern Europe the majority of ancestry seems actually to be of Near Eastern origin (80% of genes), indeed even in France and Germany there seems to be a 50:50 split between genes of Near Eastern and European origin and in the British Isles we see about a 20% Near Eastern contribution. So again it depends when you draw your arbitrary deffinition of ''origin'' (and it is arbitrary). The European population's origin is African from 70,000 years ago, European population's origin is both Near Eastern and European 10,000 years ago, European population's origin is only ''European'' after about 4,000 years ago, and even then there is no ''exclusivity'', where does ''Europe'' stop, Europeans do not form a discrete population that is reproductively excluded from others. Indeed your argument for ''European'' origins may have applied to the small paleolithic population that lived in the Iberian peninsula some 10,000 years ago, but this isolation did not last very long after the end of the glaciation, and the modern population seems to be a hybrid of this and all other populations to have expanded into Europe after the end of the glaciation. Europeans are a hybrid population with numerous origins and has arisen recently. ] 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

:Thulean said: ''3) That's why genetics is only *part* of the equation. A part that has been completely ignored in this article.''
:I say: The genetics of skin color is still poorly understood and involves several genes that can inhibit the expression of each other. Recently was a case in Spain of twins of totally different colors: one white and the other black. Being twins, obviously both have the same parents. It's extremely rare but it can happen. Also many of the genes involved in skin color exist among Blacks as among Whites. I think I said before but you don't seem to listen. The difference may be in other genes inhibiting or not their expression.
:Thulean said: ''4) Totally European is a wrong word then. However europeans have been isolated by genetic similarity: '' and ''5) Most people will consider Europeans or people of European ancestry as white.''
:I say: Notice that the article says "Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas" (that is what classical antropometry called ]), when mentioning the clearly defined groups, not "Europeans". It's not always possible to determine that adscription clearly (and really, who cares?). In any case, Europeans have not been isolated, even pure Basque or Irish samples show some "alien elements". --] 15:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


:That was on the previous comment. On the last one, my apologies but sometimes I am rude with people who seem to have a hidden agenda. "Ranting" was maybe inappropiate but my suspicions (conviction) about your political agenda remain untouched.
:Read what you quote anyhow: "Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences". It clearly says that any genetic use of the term race is very imprecise.
:This quote (unsourced) is rather false: "The billion or so of the world's people of largely European descent have a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else". In fact there's nothing as genetically close to an European as a West Asian (and vice versa). For a mored detailed (though not totally uncontroversial) clustering of human populations (as per Cavalli Sforza, 1996) see . --] 15:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Save your sentiment, I do not care either way. However, I see that you continue with your ad-hominems, speculating about my "agenda". I'm new to Misplaced Pages, but I'm sure there are mechanisms here to report such polluting behaviour. ] 15:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 22:16, 10 December 2024

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This article needs to be cleaned up.

We absolutely need more emphasis on the social significance of this topic, and much less bloat consisting of regional definitions of whiteness. This article is severely cluttered with the latter. Alexander Shipfield (talk) 12:10, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Missing countries

Lots of missing countries in the census information. Germany, and many others. Request for those to be added in please. 184.57.56.79 (talk) 03:33, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Germany has a problematic history with racial classification. At least according to Misplaced Pages, such information is not collected by today's German government. Really, that whole section is a mess, not least because of the unresolvable problem of differing definitions of "white people". The article would arguably be better without the section. CAVincent (talk) 04:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Can we fix the percentages of African countries?

The percentages in African countries are way off. For example Kenya says 42,800 White people is 2% of the population. This would imply Kenya only has a population of 2 million people. Malawi and Morocco are also inaccurate (0.06% and 0.03% respectively) Can we change the percentages of these? Or possibly remove it for being such a small portion of these countries populations? Otterstone (talk) 04:16, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Questionable map

The disputed map

The main map placed in the page is very inconsistent and inaccurate for specifically Latin America. Places such as Jalisco and the north of Mexico are shown with almost no European ancestry even though the ancestry of the region is comparable to the southern cone of South America and Costa Rica. Not only that, one state would have predominantly European ancestry whereas a bordering state has almost none which makes no sense considering the demographic history of Latin America, even more so for Mexico where 1/3-2/5 (30-40%) of the population are European descended. I am also not sure how Chiapas and Yucatán have more European ancestry than the central north region of Mexico. For Colombia as well I see it’s very inaccurate as Nariño and the southern Andes of Colombia are somehow predominantly European even though the people there are indistinguishable from Ecuadorians, and your basis being that “40% are white in Colombia and 47% are mestizo” despite the fact that those numbers are made up and aren’t proven by any source and most sources state in fact that 20% are European, 50-60% re mestizo and the rest are ethnic populations, I recommend reading into the sources in Race and ethnicity in Colombia and adjusting the map from that. There are also other places in the world that have European ancestry that the map doesn’t show. ElMexicanotres (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

And this is based from several sources across the specific Misplaced Pages pages related to these ethnic groups. I recommend you view Ethnic groups in Latin America instead as it provides a better insight to the actual demographics of the region. ElMexicanotres (talk) 00:14, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
The over-arching problem here is WP:OR, specifically WP:SYNTH. Images from Commons are not a hack to bypass the need for reliable sources. That's what this map represents. Further, the map has a very, very long list of qualifications in its description at Commons:File:European Ancestry Large.svg, including a paragraph that starts "This is NOT a map of the White race, just an "European ancestry" map." None of this context was included, it was just presented as if it were an accepted bland fact.
Unlike many of these racial/ethnic maps on Commons, this one at least appears to be made with good intentions... or maybe not. There is a lot of racist junk science on Commons, so it's hard to tell. This map would need far, far, far more context and many reliable sources before it would belong in this article, and especially in the lead. Grayfell (talk) 00:23, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
The Page European emigration also has this exact map, what shall we do with it for now? ElMexicanotres (talk) 01:52, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for mentioning that. I have removed it and started a discussion at that article: Talk:European_emigration#European_Ancestry_map. Grayfell (talk) 04:07, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Just adding two cents: I'd agree that the recently removed map is a mess of OR and SYNTH. Given differing definitions of whiteness and even "Europeanness", this would likely be an irresolvable problem for *any* map attempting to display a global distribution of white people. Also, a lengthy set of qualifications would defeat the purpose of a simple at-a-glance map graphic, and without qualifications the map is more misleading than informative. The article is fine without it. CAVincent (talk) 04:28, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 November 2024

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In the 'Republic of Ireland' subsection, change the word 'ideontified' to 'identified' Eisenstein Integer (talk) 10:43, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Large population tables

This is regarding these edits, which I have reverted.

There are a lot of major problems here. Some of which are similar to what has already been discussed at #Questionable map above.

One problem is that this table would combine many wildly different sources with wildly different methodologies and definitions of 'white people' and present them all as being directly comparable.

Another major issue is that many of these sources are not reliable. Sources need to be WP:RS, and other Misplaced Pages articles are not reliable sources, per WP:CIRC.

Finally, combining these statistics at all is a form of original research. We use sources to form conclusions, not editors. Please do not restore this table until consensus has changed. Grayfell (talk) 21:33, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@Domen von Wielkopolska: Hello. This is the place to discuss these edits. Nothing about Joshua Project's website indicates that it has a positive reputation for accuracy, fact-checking, or peer review. Further, the site doesn't consistently use the term 'white', so any interpretation of this source for this article would be original research. But again, it doesn't appear to be a reliable source in general. Grayfell (talk) 21:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Well, the term 'white' is defined by this article itself ('White people') as 'those of mostly European ancestry'. So I just summed up the numbers of all native European ethnic groups listed in each Joshua Project country article. Anyway, how about I just restore the table for European countries as this table doesn't use Joshua Project among its sources (it is based on census counts and official estimates)? Of course I will use reliable sources directly instead of linking to other Misplaced Pages articles (per the WP:CIRC policy). Domen von Wielkopolska (talk) 21:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
But I do think that the Joshua Project website is accurate and reliable for the purpose that it serves, namely: counting ethnic groups. I noticed only one obvious inaccuracy when researching their data, the number of White Australians in Papua New Guinea. But it looks just like an error in adding one extra zero (it should be 13,900 instead of 139,000). This source confirms that they are "over 10,000": https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/papua-new-guinea/australia-papua-new-guinea-engagement . Domen von Wielkopolska (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
No, do not restore any part of this table until consensus is reached. As I said there are a lot of problems.
The Joshua project is not a reliable source in general, but it's also not reliable for whether or not any ethnic group is 'white' enough to be counted. Nothing is reliable for that, because it's impossible to do that in an impartial, objective way.
That's the deeper issue with these kinds of charts and maps. The article mentions "mostly European ancestry" but how much qualifies as "mostly" and who's doing the counting? As the article explains in the same paragraph, "the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view." If there are any reliable sources which specifically collect global data on the 'white race', those sources would be using a specific definition of 'white race' that applies to all countries and all cultures and can also be tested in some way. Such a definition doesn't exist, and this fundamental problem is much, much more difficult than it might seem at first glance.
A paragraph in the lead says this: "Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing the reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "White race" as a social construct with no scientific basis."
The article directly says "this has no scientific basis", so to cobble together many different sources which all draw from different contexts, points-of-view, nationalities, ethnicities, etc. is original research, and it's also a fringe issue.
To put it another way, attempting to apply hard data to something which lacks a scientific basis is pseudoscience. Grayfell (talk) 01:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Okay. What I'm counting is actually the percentage of predominantly (80%+) native European-descended people, which is only colloquially known as "white people". But since there is no article about native Europeans worldwide, I wanted to add this data to this article. I define native European as descended from populations which inhabited Europe at least 1000 years ago. Domen von Wielkopolska (talk) 04:27, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
As I said, that is original research. Misplaced Pages doesn't publish original research.
Your definition of 'white people' is your own, but it's not easily falsifiable. But even it were usable, defining who is and is not European, what percentage of anyone's ancestry is what, how long a population has been in Europe, etc., and after all that, trying to count those people in consistent way... It's a very, very complicated task that involves a lot more than just poring over online government census records.
Regardless, again, Misplaced Pages isn't the place to publish that research no matter how its conducted. Grayfell (talk) 05:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
"I define native European as descended from populations which inhabited Europe at least 1000 years ago" is very clearly original research. Misplaced Pages should only report what reliable sources tell us, and not rely on editors' own definitions. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Throwing in another two cents, "attempting to apply hard data to something which lacks a scientific basis is pseudoscience" nicely and succinctly sums up one of several presumably irresolvable problems with attempting to add these tables. These tables are, at best, both WP:OR and WP:FRINGE. They don't belong in the article. CAVincent (talk) 06:01, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I do agree that it is probably WP:OR but I disagree that it is WP:FRINGE because my definition of "white people" is pretty much the mainstream definition. Anyway, as I said my purpose was to count people of predominantly native European descent, and there is no article on Misplaced Pages which is about this topic, which is the reason why I came here to the "White people" article. But I now agree that these tables don't belong here, you guys have convinced me. Instead, I've published my research about this topic (population size of people of native European descent worldwide) on Academia.edu and on ResearchGate. I guess we can now archive this discussion. Domen von Wielkopolska (talk) 22:31, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
You are mistaken. Your definition is not the mainstream definition, nor even a mainstream definition. The lead of the article already explains some of the problems with such definitions. As I said before, creating a falsifiable definition of white people is much, much more difficult than it might seem at first glance. Grayfell (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
As for Joshua Project, it is already used as a source in other Misplaced Pages articles, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/Zambo#cite_note-1 Domen von Wielkopolska (talk) 21:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
It turns out this has already been discussed many times on Misplaced Pages. See WP:JOSHUAPROJECT. Grayfell (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
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