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Can anyone explain what "DNA of the world's populations cluster" means? --JWSchmidt 19:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe what it means is that when projected on a two dimensional plane in some ways, genetics of human beings tend to cluster in groups which are semi-separated from each other. Of course, a lot of processing has to be done before a two dimensional represenation can be done. Because DNA information of each human being is much more complicated than just two numbers. Nevertheless, some prescriptions can result in these clumps or groups in a planar representation. Is that clear?--Filll 19:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome JW, good to hear from you. This article could do with some imput from someone of your stature. Hope you decide to stay for a bit, though there's even more verbiage on the talk page here than we ever got over on Rosalind Franklin!!!! I don't think you are answering JW's question Filll. I think JW is saying that this sentence doesn't make sense. DNA is a molecule, nothing else. Alun 20:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Alun. Filll, I assume you are talking about something like what is shown in the figure (to right). I'd like to see the direct quote from "The History and Geography of Human Genes" (page 82) that discusses "blasians". From the article: "According to DNA of the world's populations cluster by Cavalli-Sforza, Blasians may be as genetically distant from Blacks as Whites." Either this sentence doesn't make sense or I am missing something that was obvious its the author. --JWSchmidt 20:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This issue has already been debated ad nauseum in the "Statement unjustified by reference" section of the talk page. Timelist 20:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that this is just a mathematical statement and it is not very clearly written. It is just an attempt to quantitatively describe the data from DNA sequencing.--Filll 20:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are correct Fill. If the genetic distance between North East Asians and sub-Saharan Africans is greater than the genetic distance between sub-Saharan Africans and caucasians, then Blasians, who represent the mid-point between sub-Saharan Africans and North East Asians, are about as far removed from sub-Saharan Africans as Caucasians are. This caused a huge controversy a while back because someone thought we were trying to imply that Blasians are caucasian, so the caption got reworded in an awkward way. Timelist 20:39, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this whole idea started out by citing an article that is highly critical of the claim that is being made (see). Jonathan Marks wrote,

"Time magazine published an article featuring the HGDP and its leading spokesman, geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza (Jan 16, 1995:54- 55). Time reported in passing that "All Europeans are thought to be a hybrid population, with 65% Asian and 35% African genes.
For those who care to view scientific statements as texts, there's one for the books. It is not even false; it is simply ridiculous as articulated -- as if Asians and Africans were opposites, homogeneous and pure, and Europeans were less so. It represents classic folk anthropology and pseudo-biohistory."

In controversial cases it is important to cite peer-reviewed sources, and where an idea is controversial, Misplaced Pages also has to describe the position of critics. --JWSchmidt 00:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Jonathan Marks appears to be misinterpreting what Sforza said. It has nothing to do with the purity of races. The genetic distance is simply a manifestation of the migration map you posted above. Africa was the first and warmest places humans lived in. North East Asia was one of the coldest and most recent areas of migration. That's probably why the 2 geographic regions are at opposite genetic extremes. Timelist 00:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I started trying to get the citation changed, pointing out that we are two "according to" statements away from anything C-S had to say. If Marks wanted to attack C-S he ought to have given a valid quotation/citation. P0M 00:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused. How is this quote an attack on Cavali-Sforza? Sfroza's main contribution to science is his data on genetic distance. So why all the paranoia about Sforza being taken out of context. You have his book. Does he or does he not talk about genetic distance between different populations? I thought that was the whole point of his book. Timelist 00:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Read again: "There's one for the books. It is not even false; it is simply ridiculous as articulated -- as if Asians and Africans were opposites, homogeneous and pure, and Europeans were less so. It represents classic folk anthropology and pseudo-biohistory." Emphasis added. Marks is saying that Cavalli-Sforza is not behaving as a good scientist.P0M 00:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you read the "Great Human Diasporas?" Cavali-Sforza explicitly states in that book that Europeans (and caucasinas in general) resemble both Africans and East Asians. He offers a couple theories to explain this, including the fact that caucasians are geographically sandwhiched between Africa and East Asia, and thus got gene flow from both sources. Timelist

Let's have the citation then. That would at least establish something that was definitely said by Cavalli-Sforza. P0M 01:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I don't get. Both of you claim to have read Cavali-Sforza's book. Both of you appear to have Sforza's book. Sforza is a credible scientist that both of you appear to respect. Surely you know that he has published a thorough list of genetic distances between the populations he studied. So what's all the controversy about? Timelist 00:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

If something were quoted that Cavalli-Sforza actually said and a citation were provided to that quotation, how could I object? But read the cited text. "Time reported in passing that 'All Europeans are thought to be a hybrid population..." That statement stands only as some magazine reporter's "in passing" take on the gist of what somebody, 'perhaps Cavalli-Sforza, "thinks" things are or may be. P0M 01:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I understand your skeptiscism. The popular media often gets scientific facts wrong. But I've read parts of "The Great Human Diasporas" where Cavali-Sforza actually makes comments very similar to what Time quotes. I wish I had the book here so I could provide an exact reference. But the article no longer implies that Europeans are hybrids. The primary point is the genetic distance between the 3 broad geographic regions: Africa, Europe, North East Asia. Forget about the strange wording of the quote, and focus on the larger point. Timelist 01:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I did not read Cavali-Soforza's book. I have decided to look into the mathematics that was used to analyze the genetic data for my own purposes and amusement, since this falls in my area of expertise. I do not particularly believe the statements, even those of Cavali or Soforza, since this is a bit too sophisticated to give to social scientists or biologists. I have read the Cavali and Soforza official website at Stanford and looked at some of their papers, and my opinion is the same. However, for the purposes of this article, that is somewhat irrelevant. I would suggest we go to the original sources to get their quotes, and also to some of their colleagues to find their opinions. I think there are a lot of people who dispute how well separated the "clusters" are, which is why most scientists have sort of given up on the notion of "races". On the other hand, the people trying to do this sort of statistical analysis are basically amateurs in this area, so I am not so sure that if someone like myself took a hard look at it we might not come up with better criteria for separating the groups in some high dimensional space. This is a delicate thing and one is required to actually think when analyzing this kind of data.--Filll 00:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm no expert, obviously, but it's my understanding that Cavali-Sforza simply took all the correlations between the genes of his 42 populations, and applied PC analysis. This simply separated the ethnic groups along 2 dimensions. The vertical axis appears to differentiate the ethnicities based on climate, hence you have all the Southern populations in the bottom quadrents (Africans, South East Asians) and the more Northern populations in the top quadrents (North East Asians, Europeans) The horizontal axis appears to roughly differentiate the groups based on how far they migrated from Africa, so you have Africans and caucasians in the right quadrents (because they never left or stayed pretty close to Africa) and Australoids and Eat Asians in the left quadrents (they travelled far from Africa). And so because North East Asians and Africans are at opposite extremes on both dimensions (climate & geographic distance from Africa) they fall in opposite quadrents and can reasonabley be viewed as genetic opposites. Does this mean that race is a valid concept? As POM would say, "it depends how you define race". Keep in mind that Sforza selected very indigenous populations to study, so a lot of the mixed people who seem to embody the absurdity of race were not included in his study. Timelist 00:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I might point out that pure pairwise correlations would produce a projection onto a one dimensional line. SVD was performed instead based on an assumed distance metric and then a couple of the eigenvectors chosen, with the projections along these directions taken as appropriate axes. And probably more as well. If you are in a 1000 or 10,000 dimensional discrete modified Shannon space, finding out clusters in a biologically meaningful way is not so trivial and any method is fairly arbitrary.--Filll 02:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Bottom line, Cavalli-Sforza did not say, "All Europeans are thought to be a hybrid population, with 65% Asian and 35% African genes." Much less did he say that they are a hybrid population..." P0M 00:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well we have the most reliable source there is (Time magazine) claiming he said it. And the article itself does not depend on that exact quote, but the larger point of genetic distance between North East Asians and Africans exceeding the genetic distance between Africans and caucasians. Sforza most certainly compiled genetic distance data. Timelist 01:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well what did cavalli-sforza etc say about the clustering then?Any direct quotes? --Filll 01:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Blooming heck, what a lot of confusion. Jonathan Marks is not criticising Cavalli-Sforza. He is criticising Time Magazine for misrepresenting him. Paul B 01:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

See http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/hgdp/an.htm You could be right, I suppose. If so, Marks might have made his target a little clearer since he attacks a "public pronouncement," which sounds more like something an authority says to a magazine than something that a magazine reports to its readership. If you are then even Marks doesn't believe that C-S said it or believed it.P0M 03:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

That is why direct quotes are needed and probably from more sources than just Cavalli-Sforza.--Filll 02:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

We already have versions of his genetic distance quadrent chart posted twice on this talk page. They pretty much speak for themselves. If you know of any scientist who disagrees with the concept of genetic distance, a brief mention of that could be added to the capation for balance. Timelist 02:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I have skimmed over the C-S's chapter on the Europeans. In his summary for that chapter he reviews what he has figured out thus-far about the past 40 ky (kilo-years I guess). P. 300:

It is, therefore, reasonable to think that there was an essentially undisturbed expansion of modern humans from somewhere in West Asia all the way to western Europe in the period between 40 and 30 kya, unless some less likely explanations are preferred on other grounds.

::Between 10,000 and 6000 years ago, Europe was deeply transformed by the slow entry of agricultural techniques, introduced by Neolithic farmers from the Middle East, in particular from Anatolia.

I'm looking forward to direct quotations supporting the claim that C-S said that "Blasians may be as genetically distant from Blacks as Whites." And by the way, is that statement intended to mean "as genetically distant from Blacks as from Whites," or "as genetically distant from Black as Whites are?" I was assuming, somehow, that the claim was that the intermarriage of a black person and an "Asian" person would produce a person whose genetic heritage was equivalent to that of a European. (Note that on the chart provided above there is no locus for northern Chinese, and that Mongols are approximately 130-140% as far from Africans as are southern Chinese. Where you draw the line between the two determines where its midpoint is, and how far that midpoint is from the Italians calculates out to be about 140% greater for southern Chinese than for Mongols.) P0M 03:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the genetic distance chart, you'll see these 4 yellow circles that seem to correspond to 4 major groups: Oriental circle in the top left, white circle in the top right, black circle in the bottom right, oceanic circle in the bottom left. Anyway the article is not claiming that Europeans are a hybrid between blacks and orientals (that would be absurd). The article is simply citing Cavali-Sforza to claim that blasians are as genetically distant from blacks as whites are. I'm perfectly confident in that statement because blasians, if graphed on the chart, would simply be at the mid-point between the centre of the black circle and the centre of the oriental circle. The black-oriental mid point is about as far from the black circle as the white circle is. My personal experience is that some whites are furious that they can not call blasians black without also calling themselves black, but if that's what the data show, then that's what the data show Timelist 03:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What you are claiming cannot be the basis for article content. It amounts to original research because you are drawing your own conclusions from C-S's book. P0M 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

And, by the way, I already used the same argument (based on SciAm data published in July 1980 or thereabouts) to put a racist in his place for attacking to Mexicans who weren't "pure" enough for him. I don't oppose the idea, but if we are going to attribute it to C-S we need a direct quotation. P0M 03:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I certainly respect tha view point (I'm actually the first to jump on other editors for original research) but here's why I disagree. No one would disagree that Blasians are in between blacks and orientals, hence there's nothing original about claiming that offspring are in between their parents genetically. After that, all we're doing is describing where blasians would be on the chart relative to whites and blacks. Misplaced Pages is not based on 100% quotes. We're allowed to put the information we've gathered from sources into our own words. I don't consider making very basic inferences to be original research. Timelist 03:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is, what does "beween" mean in a 10,000 dimensional space?--Filll 04:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It's only 2 dimensional space. Only 2 factors were extracted from the PC analysis to explain most of the genetic variation. Timelist 04:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ. The charts shown here are all projections from a very high dimensional space onto a two dimensional space. In fact, I am not even sure they are total projections, but might be nonlinear transformations into a 2 dimensional space. However, whatever function was used to produce the 2 dimensions, a lot of information was discarded to get there.--13:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell this was the source of the citation to The History and Geography of Human Genes, p. 82. I'll ask Lukas19 to provide the direct quote and a citation to a peer-reviewed publication. --JWSchmidt 03:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I have the book right here. p. 82 has the chart that we have on this discussion page, and some technical discussion that does not seem to clarify issues we are involved with here. P0M 04:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, the chart is not super compelling, even if I believe culling things down to 120 alleles, relying on a small sample set of individuals, having no error bars, choosing one of dozens of potential genetic distance metrics, relying on an SVD in more or less arbitrary directions, and so on. It still looks like just a sprinkling of different populations around on a plane. What do the error bars/ellipses show? How would this be different in varimax analyses, which he said he did? What about discriminant analyses? Why are we so worked up about this? It just shows in this sort of arbitrary display you can spread out the "races", sort of. --Filll 04:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well idealy we would want to see these "racial" clusters replicated by other biologists, studying another sample of the world's ethnic groups, using other equally objective mathematical procedures. Cavali-Sforza's data is just a starting point. Far more research is needed, and he's the first to admit that. The problem is such research is very expensive and very controversial, so this is probably the best we'll have for several years to come. Timelist 04:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what kind of a caption can be put on that photo that will suggest the question to readers in a way that will educate rather than confirm prejudices. The problem with the photo is that, to people who say "I know a person of another race when I see one," the photo "proves" that a "Blasian" is not a white person. The reason that it is a problematical, if inquiry provoking, piece of evidence is that we are in effect compating a mixture of diced fruit (the individual human, a product of two parents with two sets of very different superficial characteristics) with a fruit smoothie (the average European, the product of a long-term process of genetic mingling). In any child you do not get an average of the characteristics of the parents. My mother was 5' 2" and my father was 5' 11", but my brother is over 6', and I am 5' 10". P0M 04:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

At this point I think you're nit-picking. The typical Blasian has 50% Black genes, 50% Oriental genes. Timelist 04:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course, but the "Blasian" doesn't look like a European.P0M

A Blasian's not supposed to look like a European. Just because both Blasians and Euopeans are both in between blacks and orientals, does not mean they occupy the same place in the genetic grid. Oceanics are also in between blacks and orientals, and they are in the opposite quadrent from Europeans. Rember we're dealing with 2 dimensions, not a straight genetic line. Now the people who should look like Blasians would be the offspring of a European and an Oceanic (negritoes), because the oriental-black midpoint is identical to the Oceanic-White mid-point. Timelist 05:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Have I convinced everybody that Marks is not the one to quote? That was how I got involved in this mess to begin with.

If you have a problem with the current refernce we're using, then we'll just use the chart as our reference. We can provide a link to the chart's image page in the reference itself. Timelist 05:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't have a great deal of trouble believing the general picture. I read research back at the dawn of history (genetic research history, anyway) that was already finding genetic traits in Europeans that were giving those early researchers a sketchy picture of Europeans as sharing genetic traits that could be identified as typical of Africa and genetic traits that seemed to radiate from the east. What I have seen over the last twenty-five years seems to clarify that picture rather than to poke any major holes in it. It would be a big shock if something turned up to knock this model apart, but that is always possible.

If Wells is right, then one path of migration from Africa came from Central Asia and a later path of migration from Africa came up in a tight curve via the Middle East. That idea doesn't necessarily say anything about percentages of genetic traits, but the distinguishing traits are a tiny minority anyway.

What is the point that we can drive home with the "Blasian" picture? P0M 04:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The absurdity of the racits one drop rule. Southern whites would look down on a blasian for being black, when in fact the Southern white is just as close to blacks genetically as the blasian is. Timelist 05:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no point to the "gallery", it's pointless and obsolete. What is the point to any of the pictures? Are they supposed to represent "typical" people? There's no such thing, all humans are unique and different, no one is "typical". I'm not sure there is any point that any photograph in the "gallery" can possibly make. Indeed this whole discussion about "Blasians" (horrid word) is almost Pythonesque in it's sillyness. It is absurd to claim that people who have one Asian and one African parent are similar to Caucasians. It is absurd (and incorrect) to claim that Caucasians are the product of admixture between Africans and Asians, the areas of the Near East, the Indian subcontinent and the Caucuses must have been populated before Eastern Asia. It is absurd to claim that someone with an African parent and an Asian parent is no more African or Asian than an European is. Europeans do not have a recent (15000 years ago) African origin as far as I am aware, someone with an African parent would have. There is a misunderstanding in this, or someone is distorting science for political reasons. Alun 07:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree that it would be absurd to imply that caucasians were the product of sex between Africans and Asians or that Blasians are similar to caucasians. The article does not claim either of those things. But many Blasians feel very strongly that they are not Black, but that they are Blasian. Blasians will tell a white man to his face that he's blacker than they are. I've seen it first hand. We may think their views are absurd, but they probably think our views are absurd. Timelist 09:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what "many Blasians" think or do not think. This is simply a form of weasel words. If there is a point of view like this then it belongs in a "Blasian" article. It can be expressed here as a point of view if it is cited, ant other pov should be cited, but should not be expressed in genetic terms because this does not make sense genetically. If a person of mixed African and Asian descent is not "Black" then why is a person of mixed African and European descent Black? These are POVs, they are not scientific theory. Let's stick to wikipedia policies shall we? Alun 09:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The article is not saying whether Blasians are Black or not Black. It's simply saying that Blasians have roughly the same genetic distance from Blacks as Europeans do. That's not POV, that's just math. Timelist 11:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

But it's irrelevant, and still untrue. Presumably someone with three African grandparents and one Asian grandparent would still be considered as "Blasian", but it would not be true for them. "Blasians" are not a population, they are not an ethnic group. You are trying to compare three stable "continental populations" with a heterogeneous unrelated group of people ("Blasians") who just happen to have both Asian and African ancestry, they "share" this ancestry by accident and not because of environmental and/or ethnic reasons. Alun 11:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is. Of course not all Blasians are the same, we're describing the typical Blasian. Why all the nit-picking? Timelist 12:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What's a "typical Blasian"? I find your reasoning really confusing. What is "Blasian filk-lore"? "Blasian" people are not an ethnic group, they are no more or less Black than African-Americans, as I understand it on average African-Americans have a 20% European ancestry does this make them Bleuropeans? Should we call Black people who have a greater than 50% European ancestry "not really Black"? I can't help but feel that your reasoning is quite scary. Alun 12:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why you are so scared to admit that white people are just as black as blasians are. We're all Africans under the skin. It's nothing to be afraid of. Timelist 12:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

If I were the one coming at this thing from the outside, I wouldn't be convinced by an argument that said: "You are half African and half Asian in your genetic heritage, and when we reproduce that mix by showing the offspring of an African and an Asian you can see what the result is in the photo above." I would be convinced if, above this caption there were a picture of someone who looked more or less like me. P0M 07:01, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It's striclty speaking irrelevent what your mother was, what counts is what your mother's father was, I can't believe you needed someone to tell you this.--LaBotadeFranco 04:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Updated wording

The text has been changed to:

According to Cavalli-Sforza's allele frequency data, Blasians may be as genetically distant from Blacks as Whites are. 

and still cites Luca Cavalli-Sforza et al., The History and Geography of Human Genes, p. 82.

I'm repeating my request for direct quotes from this cited source about "genetic distance" between blasians, blacks and whites. It would also be useful if there were a citation to a peer-reviewed publication that discusses "Cavalli-Sforza's allele frequency data" that supposedly say something about "genetic distance" between blasians, blacks and whites.

And to be clear, the need to verify this citation can not be satisfied by original research from Misplaced Pages editors. Specifically, Misplaced Pages has no place for arguments generated by Wikipedians based on their interpretations of images that do not contain clearly labeled genetic data for "blasians", "blacks" and "whites". Either we find a verifiable and reliable source for this scientific claim or it must be removed from Misplaced Pages. --JWSchmidt 23:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedians are not interpreting images. They're simply describing it. Not everything must be direct quotes. We're allowed to put things in our own words. Timelist 23:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Meaning of caption?

The "Bladisn" caption now says: "Blasians may be as genetically distant from Blacks as Whites are."

Does that sentence mean, "Blasians may be as genetically distant from Blacks as Whites are distant from Blacks?" I printed the chart out and did some measuring, so let's see how the numbers work out.

If Blacks and Whites are measured to be 6.5 units apart from each other, then Blasians are supposed to be 6.5 units from Blacks, right?" But when you plot it out on the graph, Blasians are 4.25 units from Blacks.

Should that sentence mean, "Blasians may be as genetically distant from Blacks as are Whites?" In that case Blasians are measured to be 4.25 units from Blacks and Blacks ought to be 4.25 units from Whites. But the measured distance is much larger, 6.5 units.

Shouldn't the idea be that Blasians have an intermediate position between Asians and Africans just as Europeans have an intermediate position between Asians and Africans? But the distances are definitely not equal. Blasians are 4.25 units from Blacks, but Blacks are 6.5 units from Whites. and Asians are 7 units from Whites.

Perhaps I am missing some way to construe the caption that would make the math come out even approximately, but I don't see it. P0M 08:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well according to Blasian folk-lore, one drop of North East Asian blood cancels out a drop of black blood, so for this reason many Blasians feel that mulattoes are Black but Blasians are not. If Blasians are 4.25 units away from being black, they would argue that they're distant enough to not be considered black, but by your measurements mulattoes would be only 3.25 units from Blacks (half the distance that whites are) and thus would be considered Black. Also, are you sure you measured correctly? Did you measure from the center of each circle? Also keep in mind that the genetic distance you measured for Blasians assumes that they have 1 parent who is pure African which would bring them closer to Africans, but in reality their black parent is usually African-American (who are typically only 83% African, 17% Europeans) and so the combination of being 1/2 Oriental and 1/6th European, would make them aproximately about as removed from Africans as 100% Europeans are.Timelist 09:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one who finds this sort of reasoning really quite scary? Looks like the sort of thing they used to do in the 1930's to determine who was "Aryan" or not....Gives me the shiveres. Alun 12:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree race is a scary concept that has been badly misapplied, but if wikipedia insist on allowing articles about such antiquated topics, we have to make sure they have their facts right. Timelist 12:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This is the second time that there has been an indication of people wanting to deny their genetic heritage. I do not find that idea frightening. I find it sad. How can one be a whole person, an integrated person, if one tries to throw away a part of oneself? It reminds me of homosexual J. Edgar Hoover leading a crusade against homosexuals. The worst result, the part that is scary, is that one joins the oppressors in an effort to gain safety for oneself. The devil comes when two groups contemn each other. P0M 19:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The Wells map indicates that there were two paths to Europe, a long path that went into Central Asia and then veered west and moved into Europe along a path farther from the Equator than the eastward path, and another path that is a tight counterclockwise hook from Africa through somewhere around Turkey and on up into Europe. The people who are in Cemtral Asia now are not the people who were there tens of thousands of years ago. They have changed. The people who moved into Europe changed as they moved and continued to change after they got there. The people in the second wave of migration are likely to be a little more similar to the people living now in the departure area in Africa simply because the original population in Africa will have changed relatively little, and the people moving into Europe by the shorter trail have undergone equally short changes of their own. Both migratory paths lead to the same part of the globe, and migrating people who arrived by both paths have long intermarried and the distinctions between the groups have blended into each other. In addition to melding, they have continued to change. P0M 09:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The Wells map and the Sforza map both show that caucasians branched off of Africans and the North East Asians later branched off of the caucasians. So if Africans gave bith to Cuacasians and Caucasians gave birth to North East Asians, one might expect that Caucasians would be genetically in between North East Asians and Africans. Also the climate in which the caucasians evolved was not as warm as Africa, but not as freezing as North East Asia, so climatic selection pressures would have also caused caucasians to be in between Africans and North East Asians. Also since caucasians are geographically in between Africa and North East Asia, they would have recieved gene flow from both groups, which would further cause them to cluster in between and Africans and North East Asians. Timelist 09:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Wrong. The second wave of migration out of Africa took a land route into central Asia. Then they did a star burst and one group did a left u-turn and headed into Europe. I guess I could redraw Wells's map and put it up. It's pretty crappy the way they did it in the book, anyway. P0M 19:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

So what am I wrong about? Timelist 20:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Another source claims caucasians are in between East Asians and Africans

http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/em_gene.html

Quote taken from book review of "The history and geography of human genes"

How might European gene frequencies come to be part way between Chinese and African? Part of the explanation is simply geographical. The Caucasoids are located in between the territory of the Negroids and the Mongoloids, and presumably have received genes from both groups. The term Caucasoid is used instead of merely European because it is the Middle Eastern and Indian Caucasoids who are best located to exchange genes with both the Negroids and Mongoloids. However, a theory of Ammerman & Cavalli-Sforza (1973), discussed in this book (p. 108) provides a mechanism for how the Europeans could come to be intermediate in gene frequencies. They argue on the basis of archeological evidence and gradients of gene frequencies in Europe that agriculture, after emerging in the Middle East, spread into Europe by demic diffusion. By demic diffusion is meant that the early farming populations expanded gradually with each new generation moving further into Europe, with the average rate being about one kilometer per year. The alternative to this account is that the technique of farming diffused without movement of peoples.'' Timelist 11:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This does not say that Caucasians are the descendants of African and Asian admixture. Indeed it is impossible that they are, people must have lived in the Near East and sub-continental India before they got to Asia, how else would Asia have been populated? Alun 11:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

No one's claiming that caucasians are the descendants of an African and Asian admixture. All that's being said is that Caucasians (like Blasians) are intermediate between Africans and Asians. Timelist 12:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Why are we saying this? I wonder what it's supposed to illustrate? How does it fit into a Black people article, and should it be there? "Race" is a social construct much more than a genetic one. Saying this seems to be denying "Blasian" people their own ethnic identity, even if it's not your intent. Alun 12:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You are making my point. Race is partly a social construct, and that's why it's important to point out that people who are socially percieved as black (i.e. blasians) are genetically no more black than people who are socially percieved as white (europeans). We're all Africans under the skin, it's just a matter of degree. Timelist 12:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

"Race" is a social construct. Wht do you claim that they are "no more Black than Europeans". This is clearly nonsense, if "race" is a social concept, whic you claim to accept, and a "Blasian" person has a Black parent, then they are socially and genetically Black, they are also socially and genetically Asian. They are never socially or genetically European because they do not have European parents, or ancestors. They share some genes with Europeans, but then so do Asians and Africans, we are a single húman population, we are genetically not very diverse as a species, most variation is at the individual level and not the "population" level. Most of our genes occur throughout the whole human population. Alun 12:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

But Alun, why censor the absurdities of the genetic views on race such as Whites being as genetically related to blacks as Blasians are. And I never said anything about Blasians being European. This is is a misunderstanding. Just because Blasians and Europeans are both in between Blacks and Orientals, does not mean they share the same genetic profile. Oceanic people are also in between blacks and orientals. Please study the chart. Timelist 12:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to censure anything. But I think these assumptions are based on the idea of "races" being "discrete populations", but they are not. It must be true that all non-African human populations are eually as related to African populations as each other. It must also be true that someone with an African parent is more African than someone without an African parent. I don't understand your reasoning at all. "Blasians" and Europeans are not "both in between Blacks and "Orientals"". This is clearly nonsense. There are no "in betweens", the human species is not divided into exclusive non-overlapping "races" from a genetic point of view. Surely it is simply a statement of the bleeding obvious to claim that any person has (about) half their mother's genes and half their father's genes, if their parents are from different "races" then they share genes from both "races". But the human population is not split up into "races" on the genetic level, genes are clinally distributed, not discreetly distributed. Caucasians have a closer genetic relationship to African than Asian people do because we are geographically adjacent, we are also geographically adjacent to Asia. The chances of gene flow between Caucasian people and Asian people and gene flow between Caucasian people and African people is clearly far greater than the cances of gene flow between Asian people and African people. But the statement that "Blasians" are no more Black than "Caucasians" is completelly nonsense because "Blasians" have recent Black origins, unlike Caucasians. I do not support the inclusion of this, it smacks of racism. Alun 12:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Blasians only have 1 parent of recent black origin. The other parent is 2 steps removed from Black origin. Thus on average Blasians are 1 full step removed from Black origin. By contrast Caucasians just have 2 parents who are 1 step removed from black origin and thus are also 1 step removed from Black origin just like Blasians. I think the unwillingness to admit that Caucasians are just as black as Blasians are is what smacks of racism, but I guess we can just agree to diagree on this minor point Timelist 13:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I also note that the quote states European gene frequencies come to be part way between Chinese and African, not equidistant, but part. It is just as true to point out that African-American gene frequencies come part way between African and European ones. What is it supposed to prove? Alun 12:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It's supposed to prove that the superficial African appearance of Blasians does not make them anymore black then a blond blue eyed Sweedish person. We're all African under the skin. Not sure why that is such a scary concept Timelist 12:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It's scary that you keep suggesting that people with Black parents should not be considered Black, that's why it's scary. I cannot accept that a person with a Black parent and an Asian parent should be considered no more black than a Swede. Do you also think that a person with a, say Nigerian father and a Finnish mother (I know such a couple) is not Black? Alun 12:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You find it scary. I find it provocative and interesting. Again, it's 1 tiny caption in a massive article. It's not like we're giving it undue weight. Timelist 13:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Both of you are right, so let's calm down a little. We all came from somewhere. We're all related. None of us are pure. Some "white" Americans, maybe Archy Bunker or Strom Thurmond among them, have in almost a third of their genetic heritage features that show recent ancestry in Africa. Afro-Americans typically have an even more cosmopolitan make-up. Perhaps most of the whites would want to deny their recent African ancestry. Perhaps most of the Afro-Americans would like to forget that their recent white ancestry came because some white slave owner took advantage of his slaves. But the facts are right there in the DNA. It is this very fact that makes any talk of tortured. Ethnic groups try to keep themselves "pure" by setting up social, linguistic, and religious barriers to exogamy. It just doesn't work perfectly, and the more amorous males from "the outside" who are wandering through some area, the more mixture there is.

So let's consider a case where there was 80,000 years of geographical isolation, Australia. First of all, we don't have any reason to believe that no individuals reached Australia from the outside during this period. But even so, what would the genetic constitutions of these people look like? Could they say, "We're not black?"

Maybe it took all of 10,000 years for people to have filled in coastal area after coastal area, felt population pressure, and then to have moved on toward the east until they finally reached Australia. During those 10,000 years they would have accumulated some genetic changes and the people back in Africa would have accumulated some changes. Maybe some of the Africans moved to the highest UV areas and grew even darker, for instance. Then over the next 70,000 years or so the two groups stayed in place, one in Africa and one in Australia. Sometimes people filtered back into Africa from the Middle East. But we're assuming nobody managed the make it to Australia again. (The oceans were rising, making the sea travel needed much more challenging.)

Just before the lusty European sailors made it to Australian shores, the lonely Australians had been apart from the Africans for 80,000 years. What grounds would they have had for saying, "We are not the descendants of Africans." How could they have said, "Look! We have evolved! We have double-jointed thumbs and Africans don't! We are the new people! How dare you sully our name by saying we are "Out of Africa?"

We are all different from each other, and we are all more like our relatives than we are like people with whom we share no recent relatives. Our differences are interesting and useful. Our similarities bind us together inextricably. is a social construct, and social constructs are generally one part fact and three parts fantasy. P0M 20:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Blasian illegitimate?

"Blasian" is not a legitimate category or label, please, we as a group should know better. Secondly, you can't lump all Europeans into one basket so to say, countless genetic studies have demonstrated that Germans, Russians and to a lesser extant the French, have a far greater Asian genetic influence than do for example Basques or Scots. I strongly suggest we drop the "Blasian" issue altogether, it's a very dead horse.--Albinomite 12:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• "Blasian" is not a legitimate category or label

Who says? Alun 12:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

There's an entire article on Blasians. I'm curious as to why 1 small little caption has suddenly become so controversial. What's really going on here? Timelist 12:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I never said there aren't people who call or are called "Blasians," I meant to say that it is not a term frequently employed by scientists or academics. "Blasian" is simply a neologism for metis or mulatre.--Albinomite 12:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The term black is not frequesntly used by scientists either. Timelist 12:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Also I was hoping to call a quorum, and vote on certain points which need resolving if this article is to have any future whatsoever...I was discussing this article with other long time wiki editors who were interested in participating but they wanted to first vote on certain matters and set a foundation and parameters from which editors would not be allowed to deviate. I think this is something frankly that this article is sorely lacking, structure, discipline and a firmer basis upon which to build on.--Albinomite 12:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• Also I was hoping to call a quorum, and vote on certain points which need resolving if this article is to have any future whatsoever

No such thing exists. We make changes by consensus. "Voting" is a last resort and will take some time. If there are things you would like to discuss regarding the article discuss them here first. If you attempt to force a vote on issues that have not been extensively discussed then they will simply be reverted. Please see Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution Alun 13:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Also for the record I'm going to do some edits to the article, LaBota and Balino-Antimod and M of Magencio might join me, do not be alarmed.--Albinomite 13:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Please do, it is your prerogative. Remember this article is very contentious, you have not been involved in the discussions very much, if you edit against consensus then your edits will likely get reverted. Alun 13:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Why create controversy where none has existed? The article is fine. I'm tired of all the talk about how the article is doomed or has no future. The more you say it, the more it comes true. Timelist 12:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

"The article is fine" <-- I do not agree. This article is full of statements that are not supported by verifiable and reliable sources. This article is edited by many people who do not seem interested in the requirement that the content of the article come from verifiable and reliable sources. --JWSchmidt 20:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The aricle is just a collection of opinions about how to define black people. Oprinions by definitions are unsupported conclusions, but that's what the article is about. Black people don't exist in factual reality, they're just a social construct, and this article simply documents the history of that social construct, and all the nutty ideas along the way Timelist 20:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JWSchmidt. Even if the article refers to an opinion, it must be cited. P0M 20:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It's one of the best cited aticles on wikipedia Timelist 21:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It is the statements of fact and the assertions regarding the opinions or judgments of various people that have to be cited. P0M 00:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Drastic edits

Drastic edits that replace the term "black people" with the word negritude which is a different concept, and remove big blocks of text including references, are not a good idea, unless they have been discussed first.--Filll 13:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't stand when people remove stuff forom articles or make massive changes. Several sections are very controversial and required cooperative editing on the part of people with opposing views. New editors making even small changes could very rapidly destabalize the article. Timelist 13:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok I will not play the revert game but I will try to recruit more new editors (which is allowed) and the majority will win the day.--Albinomite 13:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

No it's not, see WP:SOCK#Advertising_and_soliciting_meatpuppets. You can be banned for this. You have already broken enough rules to get a block I think. Whatever I've asked for the article to be protected from editing. Alun 13:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What do you want to "win"? You want to remove the phrase "black people" and replace it with "negritude"? Why? What do you want? And if you manage to get your changes put in for a few hours before getting them reverted, they will not last. Someone else will revert them. And if you become pushy, you will just get banned. So it is better to discuss these things first.--Filll 13:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I notice you do not like the introductory paragraph. The point of the introductory paragraph is to produce a very accessible introduction to the article so people can tell at a glance what it is about. And what it is about, is that no one agrees on who is black and who is not black. Also, the introductory paragraph points out that no humans have black skin. Humans have light skin or dark skin, but no human is really black. So from the outset, the term is sort of dumb. If we did what you want, it would make the article less accessible, and it would not describe the article. Of course, you might want to change the article drastically so it does not show that there is disagreement about the definition. If that is your intention, then you might have to consider another article, or to include your definition in the list. Because there are multiple definitions, like it or not. And they do not agree.--Filll 14:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

At last, someone who gets what the article is about. Timelist 20:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Fill and Timelist. If there is a specific concept or theory you want to include in an article then feel free to create an article about it, or include it in this one, in addition to those already expressed. This is an encyclopaedia, it contains lots of information and it contains what people believe, it therefore covers diverse opinions and points of view, not specific single POVs. There are all sorts of articles that I personally think are about subjects that are nonsense, for example Intelligent Design or Nordicism, but they are valid subjects for an encyclopedia, my opinion of the subject matter is irrelevant to their inclusion, this does not preclude me from including a specific POV to the articles if I feel one is missing. Your ideas of a "Black race" do not necessarily fit in this article, it's about the various different ideas about Black people, and as Filll correctly says there is no single and universally accepted definition of who constitutes a Black person. Alun 20:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Friends let us stop with the Blasian nonsense, they have there own article, anyways Blasians are very small group, most Asians do not like to be with Blacks (it is almost as unheard of as a black and white sock pair; this is well known).--Balino-Antimod 07:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

When I see comments like this, I have to admit the the "falangists" just seem like they are pulling our legs and are being funny. It is like one huge practical joke.--Filll 13:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Captions for gallery

I really fail to see what is wrong or POV about these edits of mine. Timelist seems to think they are more POV than his version, but I can't see it. For example Timelist's edit makes a great deal of Michael Jackson's skin colour, but this is irrelevant, he is a Black person, so we can say this, it is not a POV but a fact, we can also observe that his skin colour is quite pale. Likewise we can state that Clinton is not black, we don't need to invoke definitions to say this, but I think we need to use more encyclopaedic language than he grew up poor (not all Black people are poor). Also Many dictionary, census, and biological definitions for Black people indicate an African ancestry is a prerequisite. is something of a distortion, dictionary.com states pertaining or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation, specifically the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, Oceania, and Australia. which certainly includes Black Australians, and Merriam-Webster says a : having dark skin, hair, and eyes, b (1) often capitalized : of or relating to any of various population groups having dark pigmentation of the skin (2) : of or relating to the African-American people or their culture <black literature> <a black college> <black pride> <black studies> (3) : typical or representative of the most readily perceived characteristics of black culture <trying to sound black> <tried to play blacker jazz> so these dictionaries both accept people of non-African origin as Black. So what's wrong with saying that it's only some definitions that exclude non-African people? Not to say this appears to support one definition over another. Finally using official census definitions census definitions are not official and are not universal, there are different criteria in different states. In the UK, where I come from, the the state does not collect "racial" data, bur ethnic identity data, one cannot identify as Black, one has to be "Black British" or "Afro-Carribean" or "Black African" or "Black other", a person who self identifies as Black but who is not of African descent is entitled to self define as Black on the census form. Census data are not good sources for articles like this that cover large numbers of people who do not live in the states that are defining the "group". All in all I think the article is very biased in favour of an Afrocentric definition of Black, whenever the term is used in the article it seems to indicate support for this exclusive definition. The whole section on Ethiopians seems to be specifically designed to show that they aren't Black, though I think by most definitions they are Black people. I would like to get a feel for what the consensus is. If there is a general feeling that my edits should be reverted then I'm happy to accept this, though I'd like to get some feedback about why they are considered so bad. Cheers. Alun 15:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

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