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Quote request

I have tagged the following assertion (currently in the article lead) as in need of a quotation for verification: "In the 20th century alone, race was the motivation and basis for genocide of tens of millions of people, including but not limited to Armenians, Australian indigenous people, Jews and Tutsis" (capitalization courtesy of yours truly). What is that even supposed to mean? For one thing, "race" is not a type of motivation. Power, hunger, pleasure--those are forms of motivation. They compel people toward action. But race?! Is there a race-devoid state that people yearn to fill? I thought the mere existence of race was up for debate. But now, not only does it obviously exist, but it's the driving force behind outrageous acts of human violence?! I have a hunch that, whenever the tagged statement is deciphered, it'll turn out to be a colossal oversimplification or distortion of the source material. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it all really does boil down to "race = genocide", just like that. But the WP:BURDEN of evidence is not on me. Cosmic Latte (talk) 02:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S. The above doesn't reflect my usual tone on here, but it's discouraging to see not only what appears to be an attempt (however conscious or unconscious) to "smear" the concept of race, but what also seems to play the "genocide" card, period. Loring Brace, for example, can argue eloquently against the concept of race without ever invoking anything that dramatic. If nothing else, the tagged line emotionally outshines the rest of the lead, and this effect does not strike one as appropriate for an encyclopedia article. Cosmic Latte (talk) 02:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

You are right. I deleted it. David.Kane (talk) 04:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Way too long.

There are articles within this article that can stand alone as their own pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrion20 (talk • contribs) 00:55, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

RACE AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

I feel like this section should be in the very beginning of the article. It shouldn't be tucked away in the middle of article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrion20 (talk • contribs) 02:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Even before "history"? What would this accomplish--apart, that is, from taking things out of context and, in all likelihood, breaking WP:LAWS #14 (not a "law" in the sense of "policy", but the best summary of WP:NPOV I've ever seen)? I much prefer your suggestion that preceded this one: Take the stuff that isn't WP:SS with regard to race, and spin it out into daughter articles; make all key points arrive in better time. The challenge, of course, is figuring out where the heck to begin. Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, after thinking about it, I do agree with your opinion. And yes, it is definitely difficult to pinpoint where to start. It's hard to organize concepts like this on a webpage when they are still are not fully understood by society. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrion20 (talk • contribs) 22:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Neanderthal admixture

Evidence has been presented of Neanderthal admixture in the DNA of non-African populations. --Millstoner (talk) 21:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

This discussion belongs in the article on human evolution. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Or perhaps a new article titled Humanderthal Evolution. ;) --Millstoner (talk) 13:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Ha! That's a good one. 110.32.131.13 (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Deletionism and race as basis for genocide during the 20th century

How could this article ignore some of the most known events of the 20th century into this article? You would be hard to pressed to find people alive who wouldn't have heard of the WWII holocaust, as an example. Significance/notability is clear.

There is no historical evidence of any ambiguity as to whether race was used to discriminate and target whole populations for genocide during the mentioned events, whatever it's particular definition was during each event. And no ambiguity as to whether in most cases race was the motivation at the same time for political and economical gain. A very accurate, verifiable contemporary reference is provided.

In other words, notability and verifiability have already been provided evidence for. Thus there are no credible, verifiable argument for deletion – although there might be room for alternate views if verifiable source can be provided. Casimirpo (talk) 15:51, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the statement again. I agree that the lead and the article should cover racist atrocities, but the cited examples ar enot really about race. Neither jews, armenians, or tutsis were persecuted on a strictly racial basis (ethnic and religious boundaries were equally or more important). The stolen generations doesn't really fit the description mass murder although it was clearly an attempt at cultural ethnocide (I think it was also culturally motivated rather than racially). I think we can get better examples of racially motiovated atrocities (e.g. eugenics). I also removed the statement that "race can be useful" based on the statement of one forensic anthropologist - we would need to show that this is a notable and widely held view and source it to more than just one person.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

The article already violated WP:SIZE. We need to shrink it, not expand it. Your additions may be correct and well-sourced, but they violate WP:UNDUE. If you wanted to substantially edit/cut other material so that WP:SIZE is met, I would have fewer problems with your addition. David.Kane (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

you can't violate WP:Size - that is a guideline and not a cause for removing material.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Maunus – your personal opinion on the motivation for genocide is not relevant. Please see WP:Verifiable. According to the source, race was the basis and motivation. --Casimirpo (talk) 17:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, if publication by Cambridge University Press containing referenced articles by 16 authors (historians) is not notable enough for you, feel free to try to find alternate or opposing views. Original research on "stolen generations" has no place here, please keep it to yourself. --Casimirpo (talk) 17:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Aaaand whats more: Note – the claim doesn't say "on a strictly racial basis" or as Cosmic Latte asked "explanation is... just race?". No, the source doesnt say strictly or only, but that the motivation behind the genocides was racial and that ideological basis was racial in all these cases (read the source on google books or research on these racist concepts: aryans, hamitic hypothesis, hamidians, half-caste koori.) How the acts were rationalized, or sold to the public, etc. varied considerably. It's a bitter pill to accept I suppose. --Casimirpo (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Would you mind providing the quote and/or the page number where it is explicitly stated that "race" was at the core of each of those genocides? I would like that because as the article demonstrates "race" can mean a nmumber of things and it would be relevant to know which meaning of race is used by the source when it states that those genocides were racially motivated.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

On page 51 Kiernan seems to conclude the opposite of what you argue when he says that "... virulent, violent mix of racism, religious prejudice, expansionism and the idealization of cultivation. Each of those factors is, of course, a relatively harmless component of nationalist ideology. Taken singly, non is a sufficient condition even for mass murder, but their deadly combination is a persistent feature of twentieth century genocide." This is exactly what I meant. It is incorrect and wildly reductionist to say that one single concept of "race" was at the root of the genocides mentioned, they were all much more complex phenomena that involved racial, religious, political and other ideological factors. Your own source draws this conclusion.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, read the sentence again. It doesn't imply that a 'one single concept of "race"' did anything – you are making things up. That reveals you are really not understanding the concept of "definition" in an Misplaced Pages article or the claim (sentence) at hand. In my opinion a little more background research would help you approach this.

It seems to me you think this is some simple arithmetical concept. The racially motivated genocides of the 20th century.

What Kiernan talks about is nationalism, not the dynamics behind racially motivated genocide. Please read the whole source. You are incorrectly quoting the source, and applying quotation into wrong context.

Look, just being motivated to delete this one claim wont get you anywhere, nor will Pick-and-mix-type editing. You have to read a quite few statements to get a historical perspective, not to mention perspective on century of racially motivated violence. --Casimirpo (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the generous serving of condescension. Kiernan's article is the only one in the article that explicitly has race as its topic and in the very last paragraph of that chapter he concludes that racism alone can not explain the genocides of the twentieth century. Perhaps you should provide other quotes where it is specifically mentioned that race and racist ideologies were the principal causes behind those genocides. You are accusing me of thinking this is some simple arithmetical concept, but I am the one arguing that you can't boil those genocides down to a single cause - and that is what the phrase in the lead does and that is why it is hyperbole.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

We have articles on both Racism and Genocide and it seems to me that those are the articles for a discussion of these views and sources. We can simply ensure that this article has links to those. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Your point comes across as: never describe context or outcome, only link to it? Well, I linked from the statement describing context and outcome. Or do you have an actual argument? Well, the point here being - the concept of race leads to genocide and racism, and to provide historical perspective on how race as classification of human beings has served humanity. --Casimirpo (talk) 20:58, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

That may be your point - but it is not the point of the source you use that "race as a classification of human beings has served humanity" in any particular way. It is the point of your source that race can be either a "harmless component of a national ideology" or participate in "a virulent and violent combination" with other concepts and then may eventually lead to genocide. You are making the source argue a point that the author of the source is not arguing - that is WP:SYNTH. And you are seemingly adamant about the article expressing a certain viewpoint about race as a classification of human beings namely "how it has served humanity". That is not objective science that is soapboxing. The definition in Misplaced Pages is when we describe the different views about a topic - "race is bad because it may cause genocide" is a view, but it is not the view argued by your source which is simply stating that racial concepts has been a participating component causing genocide - just like religion. Do you also argue that the lead of Religion should have a sentence describing the atrocities in human history in which religion has played a role? The purpose of this article is to describe what kind oif a concept "race as a classification of human beings" is and has been - not express a viewpoint about what the concept leads to.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Not quite correct. You can take your soap-box accusations to Cambridge University Press and the authors of the book. Even if my description of the claim is something, the claim itself is correct according to the source. Simply - race has been used as a motivation and basis for genocide.

The source clearly states many times, in different ways, that in each of the mentioned events, race was used as motivion or justification of some sort, as basis for actions against group of people perceived to belong to some "race". There is no ambiguiety about this, in the events mentioned. Verifiably.

The claim makes no statements as to whether the concepts of race are sometimes useful, harmless or not. Other parts of the article provide depth into that. It should be clear that genocide is never harmless. You also seem to think I should tackle all aspects of race in one paragraph? Or are you implying we focus only on the useful and harmless?

Also, note that Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary. Articles need to provide perspective and historical context, as well as definitions. Attacking claims that provide historical perspective might be justified in Wiktionary. I hope your zeal with this article will continue in regards to every otehr claim and statement. --Casimirpo (talk) 08:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Would you please provide those statements from the book then, at least the page numbers so I can verify it. As is now the claim is sourced to the entire book, and as I have shown the conclusion I have found in that very book contradict what you would have it say. And please quit twisting my statements or assuming that I am on some kind of racialist agenda if you knew just a little about my editing history you would know that that is not the case. ·Maunus·ƛ· 09:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I will try to do that asap. I am not saying you have an racist agenda, or anything about your person, I am just countering or replying to your arguments here. Casimirpo (talk) 14:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If Maunus' and Captain Occams so called consensus means leaving out verifiable, notable facts, I don't want any part of it. In fact, arguing with people who only have their personal opinion as arguments is futile. Thus I will not undo the edit. Happy censoring!! --Casimirpo (talk) 13:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the lead

I edited the intro one more time for clarity and to adequately represent both sides of the discussion. I believe it to be concise and to the point. If you ask me I think that the intro is fairly solid at this point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adhan24 (talk • contribs) 23:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we should not revert each other's changes, but it should be noted that according to both geneticists and scholarly literature in anthropology that the term "race" is problematic and a point of contention. Both views, those of physical anthropologists and of modern geneticists, should be encapsulated in the lead-in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adhan24 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Rather than just continuing to revert each other's changes to this section, I think we ought to discuss them here. I have two problems with Mathsci's version of it:

1: As I pointed out in one of my edit summaries, this wording implies that physical anthropologists are the only people who still think race is a useful idea. That isn't the case; they're only one example of it. The other major example is in medicine, as is clear from the papers I cited about this from the New England Journal of Medicine. We can make a general statement that race can still be useful in some contexts, and then present George Gill's view as an example of this; or we can explain in detail how it's useful in both physical anthropology and medicine. What we can't do is just say that it's still used in physical anthropology, and not mention any of the other areas where it's used also.

2: Stating "Many physical anthropologists however, have been reluctant to abandon the use of the term 'race'" is clearly slanted towards the idea that physical anthropologists are "behind the times" in this respect. More than any other part of the article, the lead needs to be neutrally worded: after presenting the view that race has no basis in biology, we need to present the alternative view without hinting that there's something wrong with it.

As I'm sure both of you are aware, the version that I reverted to is the state that the article has been in for the past year. As far as I know, up to this point nobody had a problem with it. Even more than in the race and intelligence article, I think this is clearly a situation where if we're not able to come to an agreement, the default state of this part of the article needs to be the one that it was in before any of these recent changes were made. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:58, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

You can't use stability as an argument against change, its circular logic and its also fundamentally against how wikipedia works. We need to work forward - not stall or work backwards. I could agree to another wording than "reluctant to abandon" and I also wouldn't disagree to adding that other fields also use race. I would like to include that "race can be useful "as a heuristic device" - because that is what those fields use it as since there is overwhelming evidence that race as commonly understood is a folk taxonomy with an negligible basis in biology , but that change would need a quote of cause. Now however the phrase says "race may be useful" this of course needs to be changed to "X and X profession finds that the concept of race may be useful". ·Maunus·ƛ· 07:08, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I've devised a single sentence which I hope is adequate: more would be WP:UNDUE. Mathsci (talk) 07:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Maunus, I approve of your suggestions about how to change the wording of this section. Can you try changing this yourself? I think I’m close to violating 3RR on this article (and so is Mathsci), so I’d rather not revert it again right now. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

This comment seems not to take into account my latest edit. Please don't talk past other editors Captain Occam. The aim is to find an appropriately short and accurate sentence which is not given WP:UNDUE weight. Mathsci (talk) 08:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

My comment is specifically in response to the changes you made. You haven’t changed several of the things that Maunus agreed with changing: the article still uses the phrase “reluctant to abandon”, and it doesn’t say that race is specifically useful to these professions. Since you haven’t changed some of the things that Maunus and I are agreeing should be changed, I’m asking him to change them. It’ll also be acceptable if you’re willing to change them yourself, though. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:09, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Maunus, I approve of the change you’ve made except for one thing: the use of the term “conceptual category” in this context. If you read the papers I was citing from the New England Journal of Medicine, you’ll see that the reason race is useful in a medical setting is because reactions to drugs can differ along the lines of biogeographic ancestry, and race is a crude but effective way to estimate biogeograhic ancestry without requiring expensive genetic testing procedures. I don’t think “conceptual category” is an accurate way to summarize how race is used in this context. Your suggestion of “heuristic device” was better in my opinion, but perhaps you can come up with another way of describing this that’s even more accurate. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you want to go with "heuristic device" untill we find something better for example in quote?·Maunus·ƛ· 09:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I tried changing it myself to something that I think is more precise than either of your two suggestions. Do you think the wording I’ve used is an adequate description? --Captain Occam (talk) 09:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I guess its ok, I think I like heuristic better but I can't currently make a coherent argument why, so lets leave it with "biogeographical ancestry" unless someone else has a better argument.·Maunus·ƛ· 09:19, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the most important point in this discussion is Captain Occam's statement, "We can make a general statement that race can still be useful in some contexts." This is usually correct. In some contexts - e.g. the United States - forensic anthropologists and physicians can often use race as a proxy for genetic ancestry. It is critical that we note that this is not always the case (there have in fact been documented caes of physicians misdiagnosing a patient because they relied on race for genetic information - I do not have citations but they should not be too hard to find. I bring this up not because physicians who rely exclusively on race always or even often get it wrong; in the US they usually get it right. But when they do get it wrong, the consequencs can be really awful). Be that as it may, it is often the case in specific contexts. It is not the case in Brazil, which has a completely different racial system, and races are constructed differently. Blacks in the US are largely descended from people from one region in Africa. Genetic assumptions about US black do not easily transport to Africa, which has a genetically more diverse popultion (or, many more populations, all of whom we might call "black" but which are genetically different). So they key point is "some contexts." As long as we are very clear about why this is so and why it is important, we are okay. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I have inserted in "specific instances", because this seems to match the cases best ("proxy for genetic ancestry" as Slr points out is correct but a clumsy phrase). In the lede there's no need to go into detail, because it is after all a summary of what should be in the main article. Biomedicine is discussed in the main text, as is forensic anthropology. I don't quite know why there should be different sources for the lede and the main article. That should be sorted out. In fact I don't see why citations are really needed in the lede. Mathsci (talk) 12:18, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam's modification to the sentence was a useful improvement, suitably neutral. However, David.Kane removed a lot material is a summary of what is discussed in the rest of the article, so there's no reason to remove. Mathsci (talk) 14:23, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I made this series of changes to the lead . MathSci reverted them. I agree that the lead should summarize the article. I agree that this lead is a mess. My only claim is that my edits make the lead better than it was before. I did not expect that they would be controversial. What specific aspects does anyone object to? Much of it was just cleaning up the writing, better grammar, et cetera. David.Kane (talk) 14:48, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't question your intentions, David; I went over your version and I think it was accurate. The problem is, in my view, that you cut essential context. For example, while you rightly left in that most scientists study genotypic variation in terms of clinal variation and populations, you cut the reason why. Now, articles on simpler topics are shorter, and have shorter leads. But this is not true of all Misplaced Pages articles. Articles on controversial topics are often longer, and have longer introductions. It is important to provide as thorough a summary as possible, because some people read only the introduction. Also, with controversial topics, different readers bring their own biases or preconceptions and can easily misread the lead, or think it violates NPOV. What happens then is over time diferent editors just add to the introduction more and more points of view. The fact is, the current lead is for the most part something that many very experienced editors worked hard on, to make sure it was accurate and NPOV and as short as possible. I think cutting anything would (with one exception) be counter-productive - many readers will not understand why most biologists don't use race or if they do, many readers will think tscientists use race to mean the same thing most people do, and the introduction has to be vey clear about this. I made one edit which I do hope is utterly uncontrovesial, there was some sloppy duplication between the first and second paragraphs and I revised both to make it clear that they are on different things (the first paragraph as a general intro, the second on why it is controversial). Here is the one exception concerning cuts. Like some other editors, I actually do think the current last paragraph of the intro can be cut completely. The article should have links and "see alsos" to racism and genocide, which is what that paragraph is really about, but these are too removed from the fundamental question of whether people agree races exist and if they do what they are. I di dnot cut it but am just voicing my view that it should be cut. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the last paragraph could be cut.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

So do I. Let’s get rid of it. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

"Getting rid of" verifiable, notable and historical facts relating to the topic is not what Misplaced Pages is about. It might be easy to reach consensus on "Your Concept Of Race as classification of human beings" – too bad the historians and publishers of the University of Cambridge do not agree with you. Would you write an article on automobiles without mentioning T-Ford and article on space travel without Laika? --Casimirpo (talk) 13:43, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Casimir, don't overreact here. We agree, at least I and Slrubenstein have expressed this here, that mentioning Racism and its role in genocides is relevant and important. It should obviously figure in this article. We are discussing the particular paragraph as it is written in the lead. When we advance with the article I for one would find it natural to have a section on the relation of the concept of race to genocide and racism, and when there is such a section per WP:LEAD we will have to include a summary of that sectino in the lead. It is nont a question about whether Racism and genocide belongs in the article, only about us not being satisfied by the way it is currently done.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Very well – the lead should include the most notable, verifiable historical events that some (ill-defined) concepts of race helped to fuel in nearby history. There is lot of less notable blah-blah and disagreed claims in the lead at the moment. Plus, at the end of the lead the context was proper for bringing in historical perspective, bridging from lead to the history-section. JMO. --Casimirpo (talk) 16:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

This article goes on too much about what race is not

There a huge section about how human race is not a subspecies (maybe true), clade (true), or population (odd). But the article kind of forgets to mention that race is of taxonomic significance. Isn't this a bit backwards and unnecessary? Am I missing something? mikemikev (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article should talk more about how race is basically a folk taxonomic system of social differentiation and stratification.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it obvious I was talking about the biology section? mikemikev (talk) 19:28, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, then we could just cut the biology section. In biology race is a subspecies and biologists agree that there is only one subspecies of humans alive today, all humans are H. sapiens sapiens. People who use the folk taxonomy of race often believe they know something about biological differences among humans. So I see some reason to including a section on how scientists understand biological differences among humans. Besides, there is historical significance - it was only after scientists rejectes race as a robust way of studying biological difference samong humans, that social scientists developed theories of race as a folk taxonomic system of social differentiation and stratification. It certainly seems educational, which gets at the purpose of an encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:07, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Isn't "taxonomy" something that is used by zoologists? Just asking. Anyway, I was thinking about the first sentence as "The term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or ancestral groups on the basis of various sets of perceived heritable characteristics" since the relevant characteristics (which are heritable) are ambiguous, and highly subjective. Steveozone (talk) 04:37, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The word is probably most used by zoologists, but everybody uses taxonomic principles to classify beings and things as belonging to classes and subclasses of eachother. Most of these are "folk taxonomies" with no scientific basis. Racial classification of humans is one of those. ·Maunus·ƛ· 04:41, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Huh. Learn a new word everyday (today, I learned "syllogism" yet again) So, taxonomy as to humans is a matter of perception then, eh? Steveozone (talk) 04:57, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we should drop the section. But it can be cut right down. A short discussion of how race is not a subspecies or clade, then a caveat that it is of scientific taxonomic significance.

This quote from Dawkins (The Ancestors Tale, 2004) seems eminently suitable:

We can happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes in forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn’t mean that race is of ‘virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’. This is Edward’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.

mikemikev (talk) 05:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me, Mikemikev. I don't mean to argue. But let me point out that it is that very danger of overgeneralization and false proxies that is according to sociologists and legal scholars the root of "positive discrimination." I know it's a scientific term, but I'm beginning to wonder whether "taxonomy" means "the labels people have given to some characteristics." Steveozone (talk) 06:51, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Please feel free to argue! I don't know much about positive discrimination, but I think that's beside the main point here. As for taxonomy, it's not so much the name given to characteristics, but how things are classified according to characteristics. It's essentially about characteristic correlation. There's little essential difference between folk and scientific taxonomy, scientific taxonomy is just more informed; i.e. whales are not fish. mikemikev (talk) 07:13, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I tend to argue. Bear with me; there were several points above. "Positive Discrimination," as I understood you to say, is a phenomenon that results from the use of false proxies; i.e., "simplifying by providing easy labels is innocuous (desserts are 'frozen' or 'baked'), therefore all taxonomy is innocuous." I don't buy it, since I like Baked Alaska. Here's an example: "Woman" as distinct from "Man" is a good proxy for "potentially child-bearing." There were many not too long ago who employed a false proxy of "gender" as a quick test (proxy) for whether a person could achieve sufficient acumen and experience to run a business. You can't really blame folks who thought that, since for many years (perhaps even now) there's women who bear and care for children to the expense of career. It's a false proxy, though, because there have always been women who don't wish to sacrifice career to bear and raise children (and many who do both). If there is a possibility that some hiring managers will start from a postulate that gender is relevant to the prospects of a young girl becoming a Fortune 500 CEO, there is therefore a risk that the managers will rely on gender as a false proxy for business acumen, which would be an overgeneralization, and would lead to positive discrimination. The girl who is a skilled economist, well versed in finance, exceptional in human relations, and gifted in organizational theory, may well be passed over. The creation of "taxonomies" may be helpful, but if they're not precise, they don't mean much, do they? Here, a taxonomy based on gender may not be very helpful. Now, substitute a racial group for gender, and any sort of stereotype you can imagine. I'm not arguing in this mental exercise that such thoughts really happen (although I believe that they do, consciously or otherwise) -- but it should be easy to see how some could mistakenly use "race" as a false proxy for social grace, or for industrious spirit, or... In that sense, the prospect of positive discrimination is highly relevant. "Taxonomy" lends scientific credence to a concept that is not at all precise -- there are folks that draw distinctions based on false proxies, so there's a gigantic difference between scientific taxonomy and "folk taxonomy." Steveozone (talk) 08:19, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not what I say, it's what Richard Dawkins says. With that in mind, and continuing to ignore the aside about positive discrimination, which you incorrectly consider to be a point about taxonomy, your argument appears to be: Folk taxonomies do not reduce uncertainty by 100%, therefore, any scientific taxonomy related to a folk taxonomy is useless. Can you confirm that? mikemikev (talk) 12:40, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

"Well, then we could just cut the biology section. In biology race is a subspecies and biologists agree that there is only one subspecies of humans alive today, all humans are H. sapiens sapiens." -Slrubenstein

Do you read what you write? Maybe not or maybe you are just a pathological lier. Humans are questionably classified as a species which is called "Homo sapiens" - it makes no sense to say that all living humans are classified as a sub-species, no sense whatsoever. Second, you contradicted yourself. You wrote that scientists accept the subspecies concept and that they reject it. Make your mind up. You do know that the two word mean the smae thing don't you? I suspect you do but have some sort of childish agenda to promote. 86.42.247.55 (talk) 22:52, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Re. "it makes no sense to say that all living humans are classified as a sub-species": Sure it does, once you consider the position that a subspecies called Homo sapiens neanderthalensis used to exist. It can be helpful (can it not?), with regard to this position, to distinguish the surviving H. sapiens sapiens from the extinct H. sapiens neanderthalensis. What doesn't make sense is that this article goes into so much depth about the race-as-subspecies idea at all. The subtitle of the page is "classification of human beings". When people talk about "race" in this sense, they aren't talking about people vs. Neanderthals. While germane to a discussion of race more generally, the subspecies discussion seems to extend significantly beyond the article's self-designated scope. Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Pruning shears

Here are some observations of mine (feel free to add your own!) which might come in handy to those who wish to trim this article down to a size and depth that won't overwhelm the living daylights out of anyone who isn't already reasonably competent in biology and/or anthropology:

• This article is supposed to be about race insofar as it is used in the "classification of human beings". In reality, however, the article--especially the modern debates section--is mostly about race in biology overall. An article devoted to race as a taxonomic category already exists, but it says very little. A lot of this article could be grafted onto that one.

• The key points of the "race debate", as I gather from the article and its sources, are (along with some additional commentary) as follows:
  • The concept of race has a history. As often is the case, this history A) follows a route from less to greater nuance and sophistication, and B) passes through stages of acceptance, rejection, and reconciliation--i.e., thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In the case of race (insofar as humans are classified), the most significant contrasts between A) lesser and greater nuance and sophistication and B) acceptance and rejection are those involving stances of essentialism (e.g., All members of Race X possess Trait Y) and those involving non-essentialist positions.
  • At the organismic level, essentialism is scientifically obsolete (once could cite Elliott Sober here), but remains socially reflected in in-group/out-group sentiments. These sentiments are not objectively valid (i.e., they are "socially constructed"), because they imply discrete divisions amongst single traits (e.g., skin colour) that are actually clinal gradients. After essentialism, then, cline becomes the next key term.
  • I think we all can agree that a lot of popular beliefs are ignorant of clines. There is already an article, called social interpretations of race, that can explore this ignorance in-depth. However, academics on both sides of the debate are aware of clinal variation. Their point of contention--again, regarding race as a human category--is over whether traits (clinal and otherwise) differentiate and cluster in a manner that is best understood in racial terms. I am willing to bet (and have been told something to the effect) that Loring Brace--a fierce opponent of racial categories--could look at a skull and almost instantly classify it according to Coon's racial categories. He would rather not do so, however, because he finds a different classification scheme--one of "geographic labels"--to be more biologically and socially sound. Biologically, he emphasizes non-correlation among clinal traits. Socially, he rejects the essentialist "baggage" that comes along with race. The idea is not that race isn't "real", but rather that its connotations aren't warranted. Other scientists, such as George W. Gill, maintain that the connotations are warranted because, e.g., clinal variation is overstated, "race" must be acknowledged if "racism" is to be combated, and racial categories have practical value when it comes to solving crimes. Sound familiar? All of this stuff is tightly summarized (along with a citation of both Brace's and Gill's views) in the article's lead. But the article loses sight of the scholarly debate over what value race-as-human-category holds, and digresses into a list of a thousand ways that a thousand kinds of people could affirm or deny an idea called "race".
• So: Perhaps we can move a lot of the biological stuff to Race (biology), and put a lot of the social stuff in social interpretations of race, keeping the debate section of this article focused more or less on A) the consequences of essentialism; B) the existence of clinal variation; and C) the question over whether A and B are prominent enough to discourage racial categories, or are instead outshone by factors warranting these categories. I'm not suggesting that any information from this article be removed entirely from Misplaced Pages, but rather that the article be trimmed with, well, classification in mind. And by that I mean, classification of this article's current subject matter into A) biological classification, B) social classification, and C) that happy little place where biological and social classification meet--namely, human classification. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:46, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Nice analysis Cosmic. I generally agree.

I think the whole "race/subspecies" question is of little value here. It seems to be a strawman set up by those who want to attack the idea of biological race. The article goes on and on attempting to imply that 'subspecies' is the lowest taxonomic category, that race is synonomous with subspecies: Generally when it is used it is synonymous with subspecies, and that there is only one subspecies in homo sapiens. Well, then race when applied to humans is not synonymous with subspecies and the whole section can go. There is some good stuff here about subspecies, which can go in the subspecies article as Cosmic said, not this article. mikemikev (talk) 08:27, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

What do reliable sources say about this? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 05:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This article should be trimmed enough to be compliant with WP:SIZE. David.Kane (talk) 11:20, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

If you want to trim it down, some parts should be placed to separate sub-articles. Some critical points to notice: (a) Race(human) is the same as Race(biology); (b) Race and sub-species are slightly different categories; (c) the existence of race is fully consistent with genetic research; (d) no, race is not a "social construct".Biophys (talk) 04:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I see much of the length of the article (in bytes of article text) comes from a considerable number of citations to both primary and secondary sources. Who is checking the sources as the edits proceed? I think I have just a few of the sources at hand (I mostly edit articles in which "race" is a peripheral rather than central topic) but I hope those of us looking on are checking sources to make sure that the article text becomes better and better sourced and more and more neutral in point of view as editing continues. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

"Who is checking the sources as the edits proceed?" Uhh, probably no one. This article should be cut, both in size and number of references. References which are more general (secondary), more recent and more freely available should be favored. David.Kane (talk) 14:21, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I just want to make sure I am understanding Cosmitc Latte correctly. This is the omnibus article on race among humans, and as such should cover all approaches to race among humans. As with other articles on complex subjects, as this article grew, linked articles were created, with summaries kept in this article. If all you are suggesting is to continue that practice I have no objection. Virtually every main section could be its own article, with a summary here. we just have to make sure that (1) the summaries here are acurate summaries of the linked articles and (2) the summaries flow together well enough in this article to provide any reader with a good introduction into the various debates about "race" among humans. I think the major points to hit on is (1) biologists moved away from the 19th and early 20th century view that there were many human races, to the conclusion that there is only one human race today (H. sapiens sapiens); (2) that genotypic variation is best studied in terms of populations and clinal variation i.e. groups are statistical entities and differences within and between groups are mosly quantitative; (3)that "race" is socially constructed and thus the meaning of race and racial taxonomies often differ from one society to another; (4) that phenotypic traits are often important, but seldom exclusive, determinents of race. As long as this article explains these clearly, giving an indication of the debates behind them and when necessary minority views which I suppose can be covered in detail in the linked articles, I see no problems. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Point (1) is an error. Race (biology) ≠ Subspecies. So, the subspecies is the same (an example of a different human subspecies is Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), but races are different. Point (3) may be right as long as you are talking about race in social sciences or politics. Not so in biology. It seems you are trying to tell: "there is no such thing as race". Do you really mean it?Biophys (talk) 19:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the source for the definition of "race" that you appear to have in mind? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we should create a separate page Human population genetics and place some of the content there. It seems we do not have such article except this: . The racial composition by countries (USA, Brazil, etc.) should be significantly reduced and mostly placed in the corresponding sub-articles. I also agree with keeping the "social interpretation of race" mostly in other articles.Biophys (talk) 15:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I am flexible on the creation of Human population genetics, but note that we also have Human genetic clustering and Human genetic variation, which are fairly high quality articles. Perhaps Human population genetics would be a good main article with Human genetic clustering and Human genetic variation as good daughter articles of it? David.Kane (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Agree. One must be careful here.Biophys (talk) 19:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

What secondary sources that meet good criteria for research sources do you recommend on this topic? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

How about one of the leading evolutionary biologists of 20th century, Ernst W. Mayr, author of "Populations, Species, and Evolution"? That is what he thought] about "race matters". Biophys (talk) 22:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I have read other writings of Mayr, and agree with you that the essay you kindly shared has a good perspective on the subject of the article. I see a rationale in his essay for keeping the structure of this article much as it now is. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

@Biophys, I am confused. How can you ask me if I think race is not real, when I wrote that it is a social construction? Social construtions are real, and in many cases - increasingly, in most cases - far harder to change than phenotypic traits. Are you saying that biologists do not equate race with subspecies? The biologists I have spoken to make this equation. Maybe not all do, but this is a significant view it not the majority view. As for biology vs. social sciences, well, science is science. Electricity is not different for chemists than it is for physicists. Social scientists who write on race are informed by research in biology and any reasonable biologist would take into account what social scientists say. That said, I think there are plenty of cases where social scientists AND biologists use racial categories as surrogates for "population." They can usually get away with this under certain conditions. But if they think that makes race biological, they are just poor scientists. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:08, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, thank you for explaining your views. Subspecies is an official biological taxonomy category. Race is not. Hence the difference. Please see explanation here: . "Race" and "population" are also different categories in biology. Many terms have different meaning depending on the scientific discipline, for example see Force field (disambiguation). I am not familiar with the meaning of race in social sciences. If it is the same as in biology, then it's not a "social construct" because biology has little to do with "social constructs" (they belong somewhere else, for example to politics).Biophys (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, you provide a link to a statement by a botanist who says that race is not used by botanists. This supports what is currently presented in the article as the mainstream view, that race is not a biological concept. If that is your point, we simply agree. But there are some who contnd that race is a biological concept. From the sources those people provide, the biologists who use race are zoologists (not botanists0 who use the term to refer to sub-species. In this sense, the term does not apply to humans. If I understand your most recent comments, then, we agree that the article has to provide a coherent explanation for why race, at least applied to humans (but you are saying to plants as well) is not a biological concept. Fine.

But to respond to something else you wrote: Of course biology deals with social constructs. The only reason one would deny this is if one also denies the modern theory of evolution, which is the basic framework for all modern biology (unfortunately, some people with PhDs in biology have very narrow training - for example in techniques of molecular genetics - and are capable of saying some very dumb things about biology. But any well-trained biologist will spot the errors. But then again, all scientists at one time or another say something stupid, it doesn't matter whether they are in the life sciences or the social sciences). According to the theory of evolution all live is descended from a common ancestor and evolution is a process through which the descendents of this common ancesotr differentiated into species. Humans are one of these species. One major difference between humans and other species is that we think and communicate symbolically (unlike other organisims that communicate indexically or iconically). If you believe in the theory of evolution, this development must be adaptive, and it is for scientists to fibure out how,. But one consequence of this adaptation is that humans live in a world of social constructions.

You provided a link to an interesting essay by Mayr on my talk page. It is from an essay published in Daedalus, which shows that journal's desire to promote dialogue among scholars in different fields. Among other things, Mayr is arguing for his own concept of "geographic race." It is a neologism, and an interesting one, but I sense that it is his proposal, and not his reporting on what all biologists now agree. I haven't seen much evidence that all biologists now agree to use the term "geographic race" rather than just "race," and to use it as he means, but maybe he will succeed. In the meantime, I am fairly certain that the general public does not use the term "geographic race" instead of "race" and do not understand the term the way he uses it.

Mayr also provides one of those examples of scientists saying dumb things. Among other things he writes;

In the first place, the biological facts may help to remind us just how new the political concept of equality really is. When we look at social species of animals, we discover that there is always a rank order. There may be an alpha-male or an alpha-female, and all other individuals of the group fall somewhere below them in the rank order.

A similar rank-ordering has long marked many human societies as well. During the years I lived in a small village of Papuans in the mountains of New Guinea, the local chief had three wives, other high-ranking members of the village had one, and a number of "inferior" tribesmen had no wives at all. Nineteenth-century British society distinguished clearly between aristocrats, gentlemen, and common workingmen. As George Eliot describes in the novel Middlemarch, there was even a rank order within each of these major classes.

Now, there is a real slip here. Mayr is neither an ethologist nor an anthropologist. In the first paragraph, he makes a claim about animal societies that is in fact supported by mainstream scholarship in ethology. In the second paragraph he makes a claim about a Papuan New Guinea society that is actually contradicted by mainstream research in anthropology. Here is an example where a very good scientist lets his personal beliefs get in the way of good science. The fact is, first, anthropologists have demonstrated that whereas the rank order mayr refers to, that is found in Gorilla societies for example, is instinctive (most would say 100% heritable), it is not instictive among humans. This is important because it means evolutionary scientists have to ask, why would a species evolve that does not have this system of rank? Mayr entirely misses the real question. And in fact this is a question lots of biological anthropologists give a tremendous amount of attention to. But after all, biological anthropologists are the experts on human evolution; Mayr is not. What is surprising is that he seems not to have taken the time to read what one would find in a introductory level textbook. In the essay you shared with me, Mayr suggests that the ideas of democracy and equality only developed around the time of the Enlightenment, and the American and French revolutions. Well, this may be the popular folktale Europeans tell about their own history. But it is not a scientifically tenable hypothesis. Mayr is suggesting that rank was somehow instictive among humans until the 17th-19th century, when new ideas of equality and democracy developed. If he was right to equate rank in papua New Guinea and Middlemarch with rank among Gorillas, this means that there was a radical jump in human evolution in the 178th-19th centuries. But there is no evidence for such a jump. The real jump in human evolution was about two million years ago, and it is more plausible that big changes in human thought occured along with those big changes in human biology. And in fact, anthropologists have discovered that the ideas of democracy and equality are found in most hunter-gatherer societies. Since all the evidence is that before the Neolithic revolution humans were hunter-gatherers, they too had those ideas of equality and democracy.

So Mayr has it backwards. The development of rank among humans is not explained by genes but is a social construction. It is equality that is the produce of biological evolution (I mean of course relative equality, I am obviously not talking about Kropotkin's anarchy, I am simply talking about the lack of an alpha-male in human societies, the prevalence of monogamous marriage combined with the importance of sharing food between different households - patterns you just do not find in other animal species).

Now, when you write, "I am not familiar with the meaning of race in social sciences. If it is the same as in biology, then it's not a "social construct" because biology has little to do with "social constructs"" I infer that you just do not know much about research in biological anthropology. Biological anthropology may in many universities be placed in the same department as cultural anthropology, rather than biology. But we are just talking about the bureaucratic organization of a social institution, the university. If we are speaking strictly about science, biology encompasses the study of all living things. The reason that there is a large field called "biological anthropology" that is homed in a different department than "biology" is precisely because human beings evolved something (which anthropologists call "culture") that makes humans different from all other forms of life in a few really important ways. But Biological anthropologists are as much biologists as they are anthropologists, they are just the biologists whose focus is humanity, and that means that they have to try to answer questions other biologists do not have to answer. One of the questions they have to answer is, why woud a species evolve a capacity to socially construct different forms of social organization and different social identities? Humans did not evolve to be ranked (Mayr is just wrong), but they did evolve a capacity to socially construct rank - why? Humans did not evolve into distinct races, but they did evolve a capacity to socially construct "race" - why? The absense of rank and race in human beings must be the product of evolution and thus we should ask how it might be or might have been adaptive. The capacity to socially construct rank and race in human beings must be the product of evolution and thus we should ask how it might be or might have been adaptive. These are real questions and real scientists do real research on this; they don't just publish speculative opinion pieces like Mayr's essay in Daedalus, They get NSF and other grants to do extensive and in-depth research on these problems and publish articles and books on these questions.

It is bizarre how some people believe that if the theory of evolution is right, all human behavior should be explained by genes. That is not Darwin's theory of natural selection, that is just genetic determinism. The key to Darwin is first, descent with modification, and second, natural selection, so that those modifications that best fit the environment endure; the two together explain how speciesdifferentiate. Beavers construct dams; birds construct nests, humans construct society and are capable (unlike ants) of constructing a fantastic diversity of societies. This must be explicable as an adaptation. Otherwise you are saying that Darwin doesn't apply to humans.

I think there is a simple explanation for this mistake: most biologists do not study humans, and at a certain level a small set of Darwinian heuristics can be used to solve problems in the study of all the forms of life biologists study. But these heuristics don't apply to humans. So some people conclude that Darwin therefore does not apply to humans. That is the slip, that is the error. Darwin does apply to humans, you just need to be more innovative in how you apply Darwin to humans. It is not that "biology" has nothing to do with social construction, it is that 'ants and gorillas have nothing to do with social construction.

Start reading the vast work of biological anthropologists and you will see how all of this stuff fits with biological science. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Ernst W. Mayr provides a widely accepted definition of race in evolutionary biology. This not "his" concept. I gave a link to a popular article becase some people here are not biologists. And that is what biologists tell. Sorry, but I would rather move to editing other subjects.Biophys (talk) 16:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Mayr makes a good case in his essay for keeping the structure and content of this article much as it now is, so thanks for sharing. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Re. I think there is a dispute here, and it concerns the following questions.

• 1. "Race" versus "subspecies". They are not the same according to International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
• 2. "Race (humans)" versus "Race (biology)". According to Ernst W. Mayr, they are the basically same, and he explains why. That certainly contradicts the idea of race being a "social construct" rather than merely a divergent population of humans .Biophys (talk) 13:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you tell me where exacxtly the ICZN says that race and subspeices are not the same? Maybe soologists like botanists do not use the word race at all? Ernst Mayr then is just like anoy other Westerner, trying to justify a concept socially constructed in his own culture. In any event, he is not an expert on human races; the consensus among the specialists on humans is that there are no human races in a meaningful sense when one is studying humans biologically. That is pretty straightforward. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

From what I can remember, term "race" does not appear in biological taxonomy. The lowest official unit of the taxonomy is "subspecies", and that is what the codes of nomenclature tell. Term "race" appears in evolutionary population genetics essentially as a synonym of highly divergent populations (frequently as "geographic race" or "ecological race"). To deny the existence of races in biological sense is like to deny the existence of distinct (divergent) populations. How divergent different human populations are would be another matter. Biophys (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how denying the existence "the existence of races in biological sense is like to deny the existence of distinct (divergent) populations." On the contrary, anthropologists, who are the experts on this mattet do away with the word race and yet manage to do fine talking about distinct populations, clinal variation, and so on, without using the word at all. The word developed in an unscientific context that gets in the way of scientific discussion. But your point in ny event is prima fasce false: people who reject the race DO look at genetic variation, and are able to talk abou tit with greater precision and power. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

What exactly do they reject? What is their definition of race? Biophys (talk) 00:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

All right, I found it (Human genetic diversity and the nonexistence of biological races by Long JC, Kittles RA):

"The relative proportion of variation within and among groups therefore appears to be meaningless as a criterion for judging the validity of races or subspecies as defined by biologists." (!!!)

"The biological concepts of race identified in the preceding paragraph are distinct from common lay conceptualizations of race. One such lay concept postulates the existence of near-uniform groups of individuals that can be identified by a few externally visible traits such as skin color (Keita and Kittles 1997). The AAPA statement on race (American Association of Physical Anthropologists 1996) articulates a counter argument to this popular view. In fact, our findings are consistent with the key features of the AAPA view: that all human populations derive from a common ancestral group, that there is great genetic diversity within all human populations, and that the geographic pattern of variation is complex and presents no major discontinuity." and so on.

Thus, the AAPA statement (and lots of other statements) disproves "lay conceptualizations of race", but certainly not the biological concept of race I was talking about, for example as defined by famous Theodosius Dobzhansky (simply genetically distinct Mendelian populations, see quote in this article). Crystal clear.Biophys (talk) 03:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Could We Agree Jointly to Compile a Source List for This and Related Articles?

I see there is currently discussion about whether or not to restructure the article, and perhaps to fork off subarticles. Preparatory to such discussions, I always like to ask other Wikipedians what sources they have found that are especially informative about the article topic(s). I am still, weeks after beginning, in the process of compiling a source list on human intelligence research for editing the several articles on Misplaced Pages that pertain to IQ testing and related issues. Most of those articles could use a good bit of editing, on the basis of better sources, and I invite Wikipedians to suggest to me improvements for that source list. But how about another source list? A source list pertaining more specifically to "race" and what race is and is not would be helpful for several existing articles and for any new articles that develop as subarticles or see also articles from those. If no one objects, I could host that source list on my user space just I plan to host a few other source lists. With that in mind, what sources on the topic(s) of this article do all of you recommend? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I will renew my call here for a jointly maintained source list. Of course any of us can mine the existing sources cited in the article to get that started. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Reckless move

The article was just moved without discussion from Race (classification of human beings) to Race (classification of humans). For such a prominent and controversial article this isn't a change that can be done lightly and without discussion. The title "Race (classification of humans)" has a racist tone, is more dehumanizing than the previous one, and has an Auschwitz-like sistematicity. It makes the concept "race" sound more formal and credible, while it is pseudoscience. In fact, I would be in favor of a title like Race (pseudoscience).--Sum (talk) 09:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The move appears tolerable in view of the main Misplaced Pages article being titled Human rather than Human being. (The latter term redirects to the article titled by the single word.) We have saved a few characters in the article title with little definite change of meaning. I just checked what pages link to this article--quite a few, with many different redirect pages--and what was done here by the move (rename) looks all right. To be a good redirect target for all the wikilinks that lead here, this article will have to remain broad and interdisciplinary in scope. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:58, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's basically my view (I was the one who moved the article). "Humans" is used far more often than "human beings," so my move simply made the title shorter (a clear improvement) without losing any information. I didn't even make a major change to the title—for example, I think "Race (human)" would be an even better title, but I don't want to move the page again because I think the current title is good enough and because I don't want to cause more controversy. I definitely didn't expect my action to provoke such a large reaction. 67.170.81.80 (talk) 03:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Err, sorry, the above post was made by me. Eyu100 03:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's face it, the title was awkward, and it is still awkward. But the move was actually an improvement. The point of racial categorization is grouping human populations, not individuals. Sure, it can be and has been used to classify individuals, but that's secondary.

The "classification of human beings" thing in the title is little more than arguing by article title. A more proper disambiguation might be "race (human populations)" or similar. SummerWithMorons, your instant-Godwining of this (come on, you referred to Auschwitz without any provocation whatsoevecr in the second sentence of your first post. Can you get any more uptight about the topic?) is an excellent illustration that the current title is the result of entirely too much discussion, and discussion among the wrong people for the wrong reasons at that. You apparently just want a title to reflect your opinion that "it is pseudoscience". This is an extremely poor approach to WP:NAME. A real discussion would just look into how other tertiary sources handle this without the obsessing over "omg racist tone dehumanizing Auschwitz pseudoscience". --dab (𒁳) 09:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

on second thoughts, I think it will spare us much grief if we just move the article to racial group and be done, after all the term is bold in the lead and it is perfectly unambiguous. We just need disambiguation because of the unrelated race-as-in-racing, and because of the related race (biology). We could just place it at race (anthropology) and be done, but then people like Summer above will rant about how it is really pseudoscience, not 'real' anthropology. Racial group has none of these problems and is just an unambiguous title for what the article is supposed to discuss. --dab (𒁳) 12:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I have some qualms with race (human groups). But I think dab's other proposal is spot-on. We have race (biology) for flora and fauna, so I think race (anthropology) for humans is actually a very good and constructive suggestion. As to anyone who might say that is pseudoscience, well, they are in the same fringe as people who say Einstein was wrong about relativity. Every major university in North America, Australia and Europe, and most major universities in the other three populated continents, has an anthropology department. So the claim that it is pseudoscience is not worth taking seriously. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a title Race (anthropology) could also be workable. (I'm not advocating another change so soon after the last change.) Particularly because there is another article titled Race (biology), the parallelism of titles would announce what this article is about, as any educated person knows that the subject matter of the discipline of anthropology is human beings, by etymology of the name of the discipline. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No, Race (anthropology) would be a bad title because it would imply that the article is focused on the views of anthropologists alone. For example, would the views of a geneticist belong in such an article? Not by its title. (Of course, there would be nothing wrong with having an article which covered just the views of anthropologists on race, but this article is, obviously, intended to be much broader.) I think that, on the whole, the new name is better than the old name. But I could also imagine a better name, perhaps in conjunction with a rationalization that connected this article with Human genetic clustering and Human genetic variation as discussed in the Pruning shears discussion above? David.Kane (talk) 16:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

• How about moving this to a more neutral title, such as Human races (currently a redirect)? I noticed that we do not even have a Category:Human races. But we probably should have it.Biophys (talk) 14:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The article was once titled Race (anthropology) before the name was changed to race (classification of human beings). Despite the clumsy name, I think it is the most neutral. The problem with "human races" is that it implies that races are real when this suggestion is disputed. Looking at the definition from online dictionary, race could simply mean any classification of humans, including a "race of journalists". Wapondaponda (talk) 16:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. Maybe the best way is to think of this article as a daughter article to human? We could then have human (races), human (genetic variation), human (genetic clustering) and so on. Just thinking out loud . . . David.Kane (talk) 16:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The focus of the article shouldn't be on describing particular races as articles such as black people or white people already exist. Rather the focus should be on describing the criteria used for classification, including the objectivity or lack of objectivity of such criteria. This is why I support the current title. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

So, the races are real since we have already black people, white people and this article. At the very least, they are real as valid encyclopedic subjects. Therefore, moving this to Human races should not be a problem.Biophys (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, nobody disputes that races are real social constructs. The problem with "human races" is that it implies a list of races, rather than a discussion of classification or taxonomy. Such a discussion will provide the necessary background to the existence of these socially defined groups, and will also discuss the various controversies associated with race. Wapondaponda (talk) 23:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

@David Kane: "anthropology" is "the study of human beings." The reason for the disambiguation is that botanists and zoologists (according to some of our editors, at least) use the word race diferently from anthropologists i.e. people who study dogs and bananas use the word race diferently from those studying humans. Now, we can have a Race(plants and animals) and Race(human beings) naming the object studied, or you can have a Race(biology) and a Race(anthropology) naming the academic discipline that does the study. Do you object to the article on rocks taking the view of geologists? Do you object to the article on galaxies taking the viw of astronomers? But I have no objction, keeping this race(human beings). My point is that when thinking about the nam of the article, we need to look at all the articles on the disambiguation page. The words in the parentheses are there to aid in the disambiguation, and whatever words we put in parentheses, we should be consistent in the way we choose them. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:23, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course one could create articles Race(biology) and a Race(anthropology), but in that case one must provide clear definitions what race means in biology and what race means in anthropology (if you believe that anthropology does not belong to biology?). The definitions must be supported by reliable sources and indeed be different definitions. Do you really mean that "anthropological" definition of race should sound like this: "near-uniform groups of individuals that can be identified by a few externally visible traits such as skin color", because that is what has been rejected (sic!) by the anthropologists? Biophys (talk) 18:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Race (biology) versus subspecies

This has been debated already, but once again, term "race" does not appear in biological taxonomy. The lowest official unit of the taxonomy is "subspecies", and that is what the codes of nomenclature tell (please check International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, here or here). Term "race" appears in evolutionary population genetics essentially as a synonym of highly divergent populations (frequently as "geographic race" or "ecological race"). To deny the existence of races in biological sense is like to deny the existence of distinct (divergent) populations. Someone just quoted this publication. It tells (box#1, point 1, page S18):

Modern human biological variation is not structured into phylogenetic subspecies ('races'), nor are the taxa of the standard anthropological 'racial' classifications breeding populations. The 'racial taxa' do not meet the phylogenetic criteria.

Thus, authors mistakenly equate subspecies to 'races' (not so because race does not appear in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, only subspecies do, and the corresponding ternary names with subspecies are widely used and commonly accepted, even for bacteria), but they make a correct conclusion that human races are not taxonomical categories. Of course they are not, and no one ever claimed them to be such. But races do exist as divergent human populations.Biophys (talk) 22:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, exactly what sources do you have at hand as you make these edits? My concern is that sourced information was in the article before your recent edits that seems to have vanished. Exactly which sources are you looking at, and what about the sources for the passages being deleted? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I mostly deleted a few duplications of text. If something important is missing, please add it to the last(current) version of page. I checked a few sources currently quoted in this article prior to making changes.Biophys (talk) 23:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Cherry picking in the lede?

The statement "Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups, where those groups are defined in terms of linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries" chosen from , as a prelude to a however, under the heading: "Statement 2: We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population." mikemikev (talk) 18:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I used another source, but if you would like to include the additional statement (2), please do.Biophys (talk) 18:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Paragraph in the lead

According to biological studies, all human populations derive from a common ancestral group. There is also a greater amount of genetic diversity within regional human populations, with the geographic pattern of variation between these groups presenting less discontinuity in genes. This disproves the antiquated understanding of races as almost uniform groups of people that can be identified by a few visible traits. Therefore other scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, biology, and genetics prefer to group shared traits along ethnic lines which correspond to a history of endogamy.

According to biological studies, all human populations derive from a common ancestral group.

All living-things derive from a common ancestral group. So what?

There is also a greater amount of genetic diversity within regional human populations

This is cherry picked, see above. It doesn't even make sense. "A greater amount of genetic diversity within regional human populations" than what? The fact that "two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population" is a more relevant fact, and a fact this sentence appears to be attempting to obscure.

with the geographic pattern of variation between these groups presenting less discontinuity in genes.

This doesn't make sense. "Less discontiniuity" than what?

This disproves the antiquated understanding of races as almost uniform groups of people that can be identified by a few visible traits.

While I agree that racial groups are not uniform (who thinks that?) this synth nonsense proves or disproves nothing. This sentence is sourced to P. Aspinall's Language matters: the vocabulary of racism in health care. Is that appropriate?

Therefore other scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, biology, and genetics prefer to group shared traits along ethnic lines which correspond to a history of endogamy.

Sourced to Loring Brace, who misses the wood for the trees in failing to see that taxonomic significance is a product of trait correlation, as do the AAA (a quasi-political body) in their endless parroting of Lewontin's fallacy. I find it hard to see how this complies with NPOV. Additionally the sentence is not supported by the sources.

Am I missing something? mikemikev (talk) 03:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not object any changes. It seems that the dispute is mostly about the politically correct terminology. Nothing will change if one replaces word "races" by "human populations" or "ethnic groups". Can they be distinguished genetically? Yes, certainly. Right? Does it mean "racism"? No, until someone makes a judgment that one ethnic group is better than another.Biophys (talk) 16:03, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

In zoology, mainstream opinion equates "race" with "subspecies" (see here as a good example). However, mainstream thought also recognizes that there isn't enough genetic diversity within the human species to form distinct subspecies, i.e. races. This is where Lewontin comes in: while about 85% of genetic variation present within the human species occurs within population groups, differences between population groups (the "classical races" for example) only accounts for 1-15% of the total genetic diversity of the human species. There are also dozens if not hundreds of excellent secondary sources which say that the "classical races" are in fact a social construct rather than a biological one, much less a "valid biological construct".--Ramdrake (talk) 17:55, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be making this up. Your reference for "mainstream opinion" is a WP article about cats. Is it a joke? Even if the between group difference was 1%, or 0.0001%, if it was observable and informative we would give it a name. The name we give it is "race", and in this sense it is not synonymous with subspecies. Now if it has no biological validity, why would it be a factor in medical indication (using terms 'black' and 'white'). What is the 85% within group variation anyway? Is it junk DNA? Do you have any idea? Why would this affect classification? Making stuff up. I intend to rewrite this paragraph. mikemikev (talk) 19:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Re to Ramdrake: Please see my explanation above. As Ernst W. Mayr said, "a subspecies is a geographic race that is sufficiently different taxonomically to be worthy of a separate name" . Here, we talk about geographic races or populations that are taxonomically not worthy of a separate name. Nothing more, nothing less. All geographically isolated populations, which came from the same ancestor population, are genetically different and can be identified as such, no matter if they are people or animals. I can agree that there are some "classical races" (what it means? please provide definition!) which are in fact social constructs, but this has nothing to do with biology.Biophys (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not think you know what "social construct" means. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, we can console ourselves with the thought that we know what "objective reality" means. mikemikev (talk) 20:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Re to Slrubenstein. Ramdrake and Mikemikev talked about Genetic divergence, not about social constructs. The "Genetic divergence" article correctly tells that "Genetic divergence will always accompany reproductive isolation, either due to novel adaptations or due to genetic drift, and is the principle mechanism underlying speciation." Are you disputing this? Biophys (talk) 20:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Statement of Cavalli-Sforza et al misrepresented

These authors make the following statements:

1. We believe that there is no scientific basis for any claim that the pattern of human genetic variation supports hierarchically organized categories of race and ethnicity
2. We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population
3. We urge those who use genetic information to reconstruct an individual’s geographic ancestry to present results within the broader context of an individual’s overall ancestry
4. We recognize that racial and ethnic categories are created and maintained within sociopolitical contexts and have shifted in meaning over time
5. We caution against making the naive leap to a genetic explanation for group differences in complex traits, especially for human behavioral traits such as IQ scores, tendency towards violence, and degree of athleticism
6. We encourage all researchers who use racial or ethnic categories to describe how individual samples are assigned category labels, to explain why samples with such labels were included in the study, and to state whether the racial or ethnic categories are research variables
7. We discourage the use of race as a proxy for biological similarity and support efforts to minimize the use of the categories of race and ethnicity in clinical medicine, maintaining focus on the individual rather than the group
8. We encourage the funding of interdisciplinary study of human genetic variation that includes a broad range of experts in the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences
9. We urge researchers, those working in media, and others engaged in the translation of research results to collaborate on efforts to avoid overstatement of the contribution of genetic variation to phenotypic variation
10. We recommend that the teaching of

genetics include historical and social scientific information on past uses of science to promote racism as well as the potential impact of future policies; we encourage increased funding for the development of such teaching materials and programs for secondary and undergraduate education

In his multiply reverted edit Mikemikev stated finding number 2 and concluded, using another source (Dawkins): "Therefore, "race", when applied to humans, is of genetic and taxonomic significance." Perhaps Mikemikev could explain why he chose to misrepresent Cavalli-Sforza et al in this way. Mathsci (talk) 23:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it's also worth mentioning that's he's misrepresenting Dawkins as well. aprock (talk) 01:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You do realise that you're now adding meaningless nonsense to WP? Why didn't you address my points? I haven't misrepesented anyone, I used almost direct quotes. This is disruptive. mikemikev (talk) 04:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

"“Race” is not a clearly defined word." That quote is from your Dawkins citation. The idea that you would cite Dawkins to support what you inserted is fantastic. aprock (talk) 06:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

What I wrote was almost a direct quotation. You're basically saying that my source doesn't support itself, based on your own strange idea that things have to be defined with infinite precision to be of significance. mikemikev (talk) 07:16, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The word "therefore" has no meaning as used in Mikemikev's concatenation of two phrases for the lede. As quoted by Richard Dawkins (p 406-407), Richard Lewontin made the statement, "Human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of human and social relations. Since such racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance either, no justification can be used for its continuance." Dawkins discusses at length Lewontin's 1972 statement in his popular science book, but again he never makes the statement that Mikemikev has written. In fact, while personally disagreeing with it, Dawkins precedes this quote and a previous longer one from Lewontin with the statement, "Lewontin's view of race has become near-universal orthodoxy in scientific circles." Mikemikev does not seem to have used a direct quote from Dawkins. If Mikemikev is trying to paraphrase a personal statement of Dawkins, then he should give a precise quote with attribution and the pages on which that quote appears. In any event it cannot possibly be used in the lede if it is just Dawkins' personal opinion. Could Mikemikev please clarify himself? Mathsci (talk) 09:12, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm astonished that Mathsci has the audacity to expect a response to his ill-informed query. Perhaps Mathsci could address the more pressing issue of the huge logical holes in his train-wreck of an insertion above, before we discuss my use of the word 'therefore' (which I can justify) and the page number of the quote (which I can provide, are we looking at different editions Mathsci?). mikemikev (talk) 09:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

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