NationStates Jolt Archive

Racism is a word that has many meanings. Like when people say star, they arent only referring to objects in outer space. Since racism is often correlated with violance, I'm not.

That's the weakest prattle I've seen you type all... day.

I'll help jump start you as to familiarizing yourself with the word by posting its actual definition.

1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

No need for violence. You qualify as a racist. Congratulations!

Racism is a word that has many meanings. Like when people say star, they arent only referring to objects in outer space. Since racism is often correlated with violance, I'm not.

A wise man once said:

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?

Four.

Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

For some reason, I find that appropriate, right about now.

Racism is a word that has many meanings. Like when people say star, they arent only referring to objects in outer space. Since racism is often correlated with violance, I'm not.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/derek45/funny/wtf.gif

WTF are you on? South European countries are catholic, especially sometimes portrayed in a very stereotypical way (i.e: Italy) but they got some of the lowest birth rates in the world.


Missing the point must be a national sport for you... Catholicism frowns upon contraception, but doesn't discourage sex within marriage. Thus, within a marriage practising 'traditional Catholic values', there is likely to be a preponderance of children per adult female.

Something I have been meaning to point out to you, by the way:

Birth rates are cyclic. Saying "oh, noes! the birth rate is low this year!!!!1!" is a meaningless nonsense. Birth rates have generational significance, not annual.


It means, even if I had GOD like powers, I wouldnt ban interracial marriages/breeding. I'd just have them moved to Canada.


Similarly, if I had godlike powers, I wouldn't stop racists from spouting their racist claptrap. I'm just benevolent like that.


Who knows? Since it is a mutation hard pressed to survive, according to you, it might have also caused people like me to evolve. Maybe a gene making me write all these on NSG.


Maybe it's a gene. Seems unlikely, though.


Yeah, I dont care how few negritos there are as long as they are preserved. And you dont have to use it in quotes, it isnt used as an insult derived from negro.

First - I use 'negrito' in quotes for the same reason I use 'white' or 'black' in quotes... because any such term MUST be a generalisation.

But, more importantly:

Second - I'm almost embarrassed at how easy it is to prove you wrong:

"Main Entry: Ne·gri·to
Pronunciation: n&-'grE-(")tO
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -tos or -toes
Etymology: Spanish, diminutive of negro"

It's like shooting a 'fish' in a 'barrel'.

Missing the point must be a national sport for you... Catholicism frowns upon contraception, but doesn't discourage sex within marriage. Thus, within a marriage practising 'traditional Catholic values', there is likely to be a preponderance of children per adult female.

Something I have been meaning to point out to you, by the way:

Birth rates are cyclic. Saying "oh, noes! the birth rate is low this year!!!!1!" is a meaningless nonsense. Birth rates have generational significance, not annual.



Similarly, if I had godlike powers, I wouldn't stop racists from spouting their racist claptrap. I'm just benevolent like that.



Maybe it's a gene. Seems unlikely, though.



First - I use 'negrito' in quotes for the same reason I use 'white' or 'black' in quotes... because any such term MUST be a generalisation.

But, more importantly:

Second - I'm almost embarrassed at how easy it is to prove you wrong:



It's like shooting a 'fish' in a 'barrel'.

It should be pointed out that it's a racist term assigned by imperialists when these people were discovered. It is NOT what they call themselves or what people in the area call them. It is an offensive term that became outdated when ****** and other such terms did. I guess NN will be arguing next that ****** is okay to use and isn't racist since it's referring to a people (even if those people don't use it and don't want us to).

Prove our species has enough variation. Prove why we shouldnt immidiately start research of creating more genetically diverse humans, as in people who's DNA has been altered to include genes of other species, like cockroaches, flies, oak trees. By your logic of less genetically diverse = unhealthy, we should eliminate the distinctiveness of our species to be mixed with other species to be healthy. :rolleyes:
NN, all you are doing with such talk is proving that you dont really know what you are talking about. Genetic diversity is so far as biology is concerned a more healthy position for a species to be in than genetic homogenity.
With regards to meddling in other peoples' DNA, that is a moral/ethical/social issue. As an example you sure as frig are not carrying out these experiments on any of my off-spring, and hands off my family, friends and self too.

By keeping races pure as well as having mixed people is MORE DIVERSE than everyone being mixed. He's not contradicting himself. It's just you who dont get it. Like how you didnt get population decline. Or like how you didnt get he was arguing pro-my points, claiming I choosed a wrong article. :rolleyes: As usual, you are only clueless.
The problem appears once again to be your failure to understand simple genetics.

You dont realize a shit. If you had realized that you wouldnt have made the silly claim that the article I picked for OP didnt support me.
And you are still thinking on an individual basis. If everyone is mixed, people might be more diverse individually but they will be LESS DIVERSE as a species since some of the original and unique genetic combination of races will be lost, as argued in the last sentences of the article.
I dont know where to start in regards to explaining this to you. Did you actually pass that high-school bio course?

Individually people are not diverse, diversity refers to population not to person. A person is not diverse (ie different) to themselves. "Original and unique genetic combination" is lost every single generation because parents only pass on one half of their genetic material to off-spring (barring mechanical faults in gamete production).

Honestly do yourself a favour and actually learn some reproductive biology, that way you avoid proving you dont know what you are talking about every time you post. Look at it this way, if you are right you cant prove it with your current knowledge and worse still you make what you are arguing appear discredited by association (ie the only ones arguing such a viewpoint have no clue about basic biology - no wonder they dont know any better).

and there are many facts pointing to the notion of there not being any race. Besides "facts" can be resulted from mis interpreted information.

Example. Mormons were polygamous in the beginning- Fact
Thus, all christians have more than one wife. -not a fact, but one could somehow reach that conclusion, right?

You see, these people want to make it that there is race, because they see it as a way to further keep people apart. When they make wild claims like X group has a 98% of getting X disease due to their race, they fail to factor in enviroment and surrounding. lets go back to my malaria example. If someone in lets say...sudan, an african man, not an arab man. say he goes over to the congo, he is likely to catch the disease, why? becuase he has not been exposed to it, and his body hasn't adapted to the enviroment. But if the notion of race holds up, shouldn't All africans be immune to the same things, and all should be malreceptive to other things?

The immunity to malaria is a side effect of sickle cell aminia(sp). This it theorised as the reazon why those with this genetic disease didn't die off in favor of those without. This is why in for example the US those with this disease are most likely to be of an african ancestory since that is an area where the maleria is fairly common. Sickel cell also appears in other areas that have malaria.

Since you've never actually shown a large community of scientists think that race is a factor... I, however, have shown so in a number of threads.


Have you? All you showed was the conclusions of couple scientists.


Yes, it's called mutaions. Happens quite a bit. How do you think your family got theirs since we call came out of Africa.


It took thousands of years, triggered by environmental conditions. Africans doesnt have those environmental conditions to trigger for such a mutation. Even if they migrate to siberia, they might still not have those conditions due to civilization (i.e: easier access to vitamin D). Besides, mutations arent linear. Even if all conditions are same, results can be different. Inuits have been living in very cold climates without much sun and they arent white.


God, you REALLY don't have a clue when it comes to genes. You have all the same genes as any other person on the planet (baring genetic conditions or new mutations). It's if these have been turned 'on' or not. Go back and read where it says even the fairest skinned person has the same genes for dark skin as the blackest person. You're attempting to equate genes with genetic traits, which doesn't work.



You werent saying "barring genetic conditions or new mutations" before. This is what you said.


When we get down to it, as we keep beeting you over your bloody head with, NOTHING is actually race specific in terms of your genes! You have every single one (I assume, though this may be a bit of a streach). Genetically there is very little to no differences between you and a black man of the same height. THAT'S what the project has been coming up with.


And that was what I was answering to. With your limited understanding of this matter, you are in no position to "beet" anyone's head with anything. You were wrong about me having every single gene. That was a really idiotic thing to say, clearly displaying your ignorancy. And although you backed down from your own statements, it is funny that you still can accuse others of ignorancy. HAHAHAHA :rolleyes: You shoud have known better, since you quoted Human Genome Project Data. If everyone had same genes on the planet there would be 0% genetic variation between individuals, directly contrasting with what you have provided.

I also loved how you downplay mutations in your ignorant mind. Mutations make the whole difference. That's how evolution works.

And Mutated genes are different genes than the genes before the mutation. After mutation, unmutated genes might be taken off of one population's gene pool by natural selection. So even the fairest skinned person MAY NOT have the same genes for dark skin as the blackest person. That's just your interpretation with your limited understanding. If all Europeans had genes for black skin, there wouldnt be white europeans anymore since black skin is much more a dominant trait and it would erease the white skin by now.



Oh noes! How mean, I7ve been hit my NN's personal attacks against my reaosning skills. How ever shall I survive?! I don't know if I could ever bear to show my face again on this board... oh woe is me, oh woe is me!!


Well, you will not survive by being silly, that's for sure.



Yes, yes I do know. But since Japan, being Japanese, they are usually a year or so behind on getting them translated and you wanted the last numbers. And there's this remarkable thing called an online translator. Now, they usually humorously mangle Japanese to English, but they do manage to get the meanings across. You could always, oh, I don't know, use them or ask for a translation of the numbers.


No, I said international marriages are gaining in Japan, YOU said you wanted proof of my numbers. Try to remember, m'k?

And the point wasn't that the number is low, but that the number has trippled in the last 10 years showing an very large increase in the number of international marriages from a normally xenophobic country which throws your "marriage within race and nation only" out the window.

BTW, if you knew anything about Japan, you would know that they do not consider themselves Asian as such.

Well, we still can not confirm your claim as whether the number tripled or not. It doesnt matter anyways, it still says nothing about interracial marriages.

It took thousands of years, triggered by environmental conditions. Africans doesnt have those environmental conditions to trigger for such a mutation. Even if they migrate to siberia, they might still not have those conditions due to civilization (i.e: easier access to vitamin D). Besides, mutations arent linear. Even if all conditions are same, results can be different. Inuits have been living in very cold climates without much sun and they arent white.

I would seriously doubt the "without much sun" argument. UV radiation is very strong in the polar regions, and even there is more or less the same amount of sunlight as you would find in, say, Thailand. The difference being that the amount of sunlight per day varies drastically.
An additional factor would be that snow is a perfect reflector for UV radition, increasing its intensity even more.

Europeans aren't whit because they live in a colder climate, we're pale because we get a lot of overcast skies and rain.



And Mutated genes are different genes than the genes before the mutation. After mutation, unmutated genes might be taken off of one population's gene pool by natural selection. So even the fairest skinned person MAY NOT have the same genes for dark skin as the blackest person. That's just your interpretation with your limited understanding. If all Europeans had genes for black skin, there wouldnt be white europeans anymore since black skin is much more a dominant trait and it would erease the white skin by now.

Actually, genes for skin colour are polygenic.

I would seriously doubt the "without much sun" argument. UV radiation is very strong in the polar regions, and even there is more or less the same amount of sunlight as you would find in, say, Thailand. The difference being that the amount of sunlight per day varies drastically.
An additional factor would be that snow is a perfect reflector for UV radition, increasing its intensity even more.

Europeans aren't whit because they live in a colder climate, we're pale because we get a lot of overcast skies and rain.


Then why arent northern Chineese white? What about native siberians? Does it rain less in siberia then in Caucusus? Are you claming that mutations are linear or are you just challenging lack of sunlight argument?



Actually, genes for skin colour are polygenic.

In one of Zagat's quotes, a scientist was claiming it wasnt. Even if it is polygenic, that doesnt mean those multiple genes also contain "black genes".

It took thousands of years, triggered by environmental conditions. Africans doesnt have those environmental conditions to trigger for such a mutation. Even if they migrate to siberia, they might still not have those conditions due to civilization (i.e: easier access to vitamin D). Besides, mutations arent linear. Even if all conditions are same, results can be different. Inuits have been living in very cold climates without much sun and they arent white.
Environmental conditions do not 'trigger mutations'.

If everyone had same genes on the planet there would be 0% genetic variation between individuals, directly contrasting with what you have provided.
Er, no. Perhaps you are confusing 'gene' with 'allele' (the earlier being common within a species, the latter being the variant forms the earlier can take).

I also loved how you downplay mutations in your ignorant mind. Mutations make the whole difference. That's how evolution works.
The overwhelming majority of mutations that occur are irrelevent in terms of evolution because most are not passed on to the next generation.

And Mutated genes are different genes than the genes before the mutation.
Not in most cases, in most cases they are variant forms of the same gene (ie a different allele).

After mutation, unmutated genes might be taken off of one population's gene pool by natural selection. So even the fairest skinned person MAY NOT have the same genes for dark skin as the blackest person. That's just your interpretation with your limited understanding. If all Europeans had genes for black skin, there wouldnt be white europeans anymore since black skin is much more a dominant trait and it would erease the white skin by now.
Skin colour is neither dominant nor recessive. I'm not kidding when I tell you that your continued posting on issues you clearly lack even the most basic knowledge of, does you and your view points no favour in the credibility stakes.

In one of Zagat's quotes, a scientist was claiming it wasnt.
Doubt it.

If everyone can take a brief pause from pointing out how idiotic the aryan troll is, I found a neat-o site that explains skin pigmentation quite clearly:
http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant570/topics/Skincolor.PDF#search=%22carotene%20skin%20colour%20genetics%22

Then why arent northern Chineese white? What about native siberians? Does it rain less in siberia then in Caucusus? Are you claming that mutations are linear or are you just challenging lack of sunlight argument?

Rainfall on average in Siberia is actually only a tiny fraction of the average in the Caucasus region:

Because Russia has little exposure to ocean influences, most of the country receives low to moderate amounts of precipitation. Highest precipitation falls in the northwest, with amounts decreasing from northwest to southeast across European Russia. The wettest areas are the small, lush subtropical region adjacent to the Caucasus and along the Pacific coast. Along the Baltic coast, average annual precipitation is 600 millimeters, and in Moscow it is 525 millimeters. An average of only twenty millimeters falls along the Russian-Kazakh border, and as little as fifteen millimeters may fall along Siberia's Arctic coastline. Average annual days of snow cover, a critical factor for agriculture, depends on both latitude and altitude. Cover varies from forty to 200 days in European Russia, and from 120 to 250 days in Siberia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Russia#Climate


In one of Zagat's quotes, a scientist was claiming it wasnt. Even if it is polygenic, that doesnt mean those multiple genes also contain "black genes".

There are no "black" genes. There are several genes that are responsible for the melatonin production of our bodies, and the combination of those genes determines your eventual skin colour.

Since racism is often correlated with violance, I'm not.

That is sort of like saying "Since car racing is often associated with crashes, if there wasn't a crash, it wasn't a race." Violence is one way of manifesting racism, but it is not a necessary component of racism. Racism can manifest itself in many non-violent, but often insidious, ways.

I don't have to. Nature did it for me, but making us unable to breed. Meanwhile, races can still breed so clearly we need the variations. By NATURE's logic of less diverse=unhealthy. Natural law makes becoming isolated enough genetically so much that we can't breed viable offspring take a LOT of generations so that by the time it happens there is enough diversity in each species. That's the proof. If you wish to prove it wrong, please get started, but nature has a few hundred million years on you.


How do you know nature's logic? Maybe nature made races able to breed with others on the assumption that they will be geographically seperated.

And what is natural? Do blacks reach here via natural means? Do they let themselves on the ocean and let the natural waves do the transportation? Do they walk here? No, they use boats or planes usually, which are unnatural human inventions. Similarly most of them come here due to artificially created economical divisions.

Basically they are coming here as a result of civilization. If we get to the point of including other species genes to our genes (Maybe we can already do it), it'd be also a result of civilization. So no distinction. And based your argument of maximizing genetic variation, we should immidiately start to work on how to freak human species up.


Now are you going to continue to argue against the article and arguments you presented arguing that genetic variation is something we should preserve or are you done embarrassing yourself.


You forgot to put quotes on my argument:


By keeping races pure as well as having mixed people is MORE DIVERSE than everyone being mixed. He's not contradicting himself. It's just you who dont get it. Like how you didnt get population decline. Or like how you didnt get he was arguing pro-my points, claiming I choosed a wrong article. :rolleyes: As usual, you are only clueless.


Which part you didnt get that you reached to your irrevelant conclusion?



You are arguing against it, frequently. You don't realize that when you argue for isolation that you are arguing against diversity because biologically there is no advantage to a gene being present in a species if intermingling with that gene is discouraged. You encourage behavior that limits diversity while making the ignorant argument that diversity and isolationism mean the same thing. You are trying to make a social argument and pretend like it's a biological argument, but biology by its very nature disagrees with you. That's why we're laughing at you.


I'm not arguing that no-one should interracially mix. I'm arguing some should stay pure while some mix. I'm not arguing for isolation of all whites, I'm only arguing for Europe's. When you are done with laughing, you should read the arguments.



And again your embarrassing level of biological understanding rears it's ugly head. As a species as long as the variation exists in our genes we benefit from them. We cannot become less diverse if the genes are preserved. If the individuals have the genes even if they are mixed with other genes it has no bearing on a biological argument.


Keep in mind that you are also calling the level of biological understanding of an evolutionary developmental biologist at Imperial College in London embarrassing. Do you really need such an ego boost with such delusions? That's just sad.


Yet even after they have gone, the genetic variants that defined the Negritos will remain, albeit scattered, in the people who inhabit the littoral of the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. They will remain visible in the unusually dark skin of some Indonesians, the unusually curly hair of some Sri Lankans, the unusually slight frames of some Filipinos. But the unique combination of genes that makes the Negritos so distinctive, and that took tens of thousands of years to evolve, will have disappeared. A human race will have gone extinct, and the human species will be the poorer for it.


We can be less diverse if a "unique combination of genes that makes a race so distinctive, and that took tens of thousands of years to evolve, disappears." even if genes are preserved in a scattered manner. I did explain this to you before. It takes a lot time for you to understand, I guess.


Biologically 'genetic combination' is not something that matters. If genetic combinations mattered we would reproduce asexually.


Genetic combination of populations matter, not of individuals.


However, instead a biological advantage formed to mixing and matching genes. If you're going to claim this is a disadvantage, you're going to have to prove it. But again, you'll be going against about a few hundred million years of biology.

I dont claim it. Dr Leroi does. Any many agreed with him. Read the link.

Missing the point must be a national sport for you... Catholicism frowns upon contraception, but doesn't discourage sex within marriage. Thus, within a marriage practising 'traditional Catholic values', there is likely to be a preponderance of children per adult female.

Something I have been meaning to point out to you, by the way:

Birth rates are cyclic. Saying "oh, noes! the birth rate is low this year!!!!1!" is a meaningless nonsense. Birth rates have generational significance, not annual.


The birth rates in "traditional Catholic" countries in S. Europe are low for decades not for just couple years.



Similarly, if I had godlike powers, I wouldn't stop racists from spouting their racist claptrap. I'm just benevolent like that.


Maybe it's a gene. Seems unlikely, though.


First - I use 'negrito' in quotes for the same reason I use 'white' or 'black' in quotes... because any such term MUST be a generalisation.

But, more importantly:

Second - I'm almost embarrassed at how easy it is to prove you wrong:


It's like shooting a 'fish' in a 'barrel'.

Even if you dont agree that negritos being a race, it still is the name of the popultion of Andaman Islands.

NN, all you are doing with such talk is proving that you dont really know what you are talking about. Genetic diversity is so far as biology is concerned a more healthy position for a species to be in than genetic homogenity.
With regards to meddling in other peoples' DNA, that is a moral/ethical/social issue. As an example you sure as frig are not carrying out these experiments on any of my off-spring, and hands off my family, friends and self too.


The point is some genetic variation is enough. Maximizing it isnt needed or may not even be a good thing, in some cases.


The problem appears once again to be your failure to understand simple genetics.

I dont know where to start in regards to explaining this to you. Did you actually pass that high-school bio course?

Individually people are not diverse, diversity refers to population not to person. A person is not diverse (ie different) to themselves. "Original and unique genetic combination" is lost every single generation because parents only pass on one half of their genetic material to off-spring (barring mechanical faults in gamete production).


Remember I said how bad your reasoning is? Here's another example. Let me clarify for you. A mixed person might be more diverse then if he wasnt mixed. So we are comparing same person but in different situations. Get it now?

Original and unique genetic combination of the individual is lost but Original and unique genetic combination of the population/race might be preserved if there is not interracial mixing. That was the context. You should have understood it. Bad memory or reading incomprehension?


Honestly do yourself a favour and actually learn some reproductive biology, that way you avoid proving you dont know what you are talking about every time you post. Look at it this way, if you are right you cant prove it with your current knowledge and worse still you make what you are arguing appear discredited by association (ie the only ones arguing such a viewpoint have no clue about basic biology - no wonder they dont know any better).

And I advise you to do lots of reading for your reading comprehension and some maths to develop your reasoning skills. I'll accept your recommendations when you UNDERSTAND what my posts mean correctly.

Rainfall on average in Siberia is actually only a tiny fraction of the average in the Caucasus region:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Russia#Climate


Ok, what about China? Northern East Asia?


There are no "black" genes. There are several genes that are responsible for the melatonin production of our bodies, and the combination of those genes determines your eventual skin colour.

"Black genes" would be the genetic information of blacks in those genes that causes their skin colour.

A test engineered to fit a pre-determined hypothesis.
:rolleyes:

Remember I said how bad your reasoning is?

...

Bad memory or reading incomprehension?

...

And I advise you to do lots of reading for your reading comprehension and some maths to develop your reasoning skills.
...

I'll accept your recommendations when you UNDERSTAND what my posts mean correctly.

I can't believe you resurrected this topic to post things like this. Let's see... four attacks on his/her intelligence in a post that was just about twice as many sentences. How ironic, given the circumstances.

S/he replied to what you wrote. Your post was clear. It was just a poor argument that has no basis in biology. Quick, does biology do anything to encourage us to remain racially separated? I'll help you. No. It doesn't. Wow, the forces of nature find no benefit, the forces of logic find no benefit, but you who admit you're arguing to keep the world primarily populated by a pure white population just happen to make an argument for keeping races pure despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

Could be coincidence but given that we actually understand the basics of biology and genetics we recognize when an argument that 'unique genetic combinations' must be preserved denies the fact that natural law acts specifically counter to preserving 'unique genetic combinations'.

Golly, let's hear again about the aliens and lizards and plants. That's certainly your best argument. I can't wait.

How do you know nature's logic? Maybe nature made races able to breed with others on the assumption that they will be geographically seperated.

Nature PLANNED to seperate the races so it made it okay for them to mate? That's so ignorant it's almost sigworthy. There is a logical path to the forces of nature and the fact that we CAN breed and have healthy and viable children suggests that it benefits us. There are forces of nature that are logical, but they don't have a 'plan'.

Genetic variants that have a sum effect of being detrimental don't tend remain. You claimed it was detrimental for us to breed interracially. Everything we know about nature and genetics disagrees with you. But don't let that stop you, it hasn't for months.


And what is natural? Do blacks reach here via natural means? Do they let themselves on the ocean and let the natural waves do the transportation? Do they walk here? No, they use boats or planes usually, which are unnatural human inventions. Similarly most of them come here due to artificially created economical divisions.

Yes, black people reached Europe originally through natural means. Prior to the great age of ocean travel Africans and Europeans were already interacting. How do you think people got to Europe in the first place?

I'm guessing you've run out of arguments since you're spewing this tripe.



Basically they are coming here as a result of civilization. If we get to the point of including other species genes to our genes (Maybe we can already do it), it'd be also a result of civilization. So no distinction. And based your argument of maximizing genetic variation, we should immidiately start to work on how to freak human species up.

Again, with this? Really? Again, if you can prove that interspecies offspring are healthy and viable in the same way interracial offspring is, then you might have a point. Right now you're just making up crazy hypothetical situations since you know you've lost the argument.

If you'd like to prove that monoracial coupling is more beneficial please provide evidence that interracial couplings produce less viable children. That's the test of what is or is not beneficial. Or maybe you could just make some more stuff up. That won't make your argument look silly.


You forgot to put quotes on my argument:

which part you didnt get that you reached to your irrevelant conclusion?

I got your argument. It embarrassed you. It pretends as if genetics is about individuals and not populations. It's absurd and shows a flabberghasting misunderstanding of basic biology.

Or since you 'choosed the article' it doesn't matter that you don't seem to understand it. I mean, in just a little further down in your post you're going to argue that it's not your argument it's his. Can't even decide if you're with this guy or it's him arguing alone, can you? Perhaps you should have 'choosed' another article.




I'm not arguing that no-one should interracially mix. I'm arguing some should stay pure while some mix. I'm not arguing for isolation of all whites, I'm only arguing for Europe's. When you are done with laughing, you should read the arguments.

No, you're not. You're arguing for the majority of the world to be white, by your own admission. You are arguing that limiting the pool of viable mates is somehow beneficial to genetic variation against all logic. Limiting the genes available to procreating couples does not increase variation no matter how many times you include it in your addled argument.



Keep in mind that you are also calling the level of biological understanding of an evolutionary developmental biologist at Imperial College in London embarrassing. Do you really need such an ego boost with such delusions? That's just sad.

Yes, because all scientists are always right... amusing and absurd. He argued for genetic variation as did you. Genetic variation is broken down more simply than the level you are arguing for. Sadly, you don't realize that you're arguing for cultural or ethnic preservation, and that your argument has nothing to do with protecting genetic variation by any sense of the word.


We can be less diverse if a "unique combination of genes that makes a race so distinctive, and that took tens of thousands of years to evolve, disappears." even if genes are preserved in a scattered manner. I did explain this to you before. It takes a lot time for you to understand, I guess.

Or perhaps you've been arguing against mixing of the races so vehemently that you forgot that you've been contradicting that argument the entire time.

Their combination of genes have nothing to do with actual genetic variation. Which of their genes are unique to them? May I have a list.


Genetic combination of populations matter, not of individuals.

Um, no, it doesn't. Genetic variation matters. That a particular genetic combination exists has nothing to do with what genes are part of the pool.

Seriously, kiddo, this is basic biology. Genetic combinations of populations DO NOT MATTER. We do not reproduce as races. If our genetic combination was important than sexual reproduction wouldn't be a benefit and we wouldn't have developed it. Then our genetic combination would be much more stable. Millions of years of evolution has proven that we benefit from meeting a mate and creating a child with a different genetic combination from either parent.

And just for an added bonus if we are further discouraged from keeping our genetic combinations stable by the fact that the children of people who are too closely related often have debilitating illnesses that prevent them from passing on their that 'unique' genetic combination. Every bit of evidence leads us to the advantage of mixing genes not preserving unique combinations.

But hey, start arguing that mating with aliens and plants is the same as interracial coupling. That won't make your argument sound stupid.

Seriously, everyone is trying to tell you, honestly for your own good, that your arguments evidence a pre-high school biology understanding. I know you really believe this stuff, NN, but you can't really be so far gone that you don't understand that you're WAY over your head here.


I dont claim it. Dr Leroi does. Any many agreed with him. Read the link.

You're defending it. Stop trying to separate yourself from your source. If he was hear I'd be laughing at him too.

The birth rates in "traditional Catholic" countries in S. Europe are low for decades not for just couple years.


And? The populations are becoming less 'practising' of the throwback elements of religion, and embracing a more laissez-faire approach. If you find more strictly 'practising' sub-populations, you will find higher birth-per-mother ratios.


Even if you dont agree that negritos being a race, it still is the name of the popultion of Andaman Islands.

Do you find it impossible to admit when you are wrong? You are arguing why I use emphasis on the word 'negrito'... and you are arguing that 'negrito' is neither diminutive, not a racial epithet 'like negro'.

I immediately privided evidence that it is diminutive, and that it is a racial epithet 'like negro'... because it literally is the diminutive form of 'negro'.

This avenue of the debate was purely semantic, and you were utterly wrong. What you should have said was: "Good point - you were right, and I was wrong".

I don't know why you are even still debating this detail. Step up, acknowledge you were wrong, and move on. 'Negrito' isn't going to change it's etymology to accomodate you.

"Black genes" would be the genetic information of blacks in those genes that causes their skin colour.

You are aware that 'blacks' can show 'white' skin colouring, right? And 'whites' can show 'black' pigmentation?

Then why arent northern Chineese white? What about native siberians? Does it rain less in siberia then in Caucusus? Are you claming that mutations are linear or are you just challenging lack of sunlight argument?


We are not given the colour of our skin BY our environment. Some mutations find better survivability in some conditions, so they become more dominant in the geographical genepool.

In one area, the 'mutation' might generate a 'white' skin, and the environment might allow it to thrive. In another area, the exact same environment may be present... but it won't make 'white' skin happen if that mutation never appears in the local genepool.

Really, dude - this is basic biology.

We are not given the colour of our skin BY our environment. Some mutations find better survivability in some conditions, so they become more dominant in the geographical genepool.

In one area, the 'mutation' might generate a 'white' skin, and the environment might allow it to thrive. In another area, the exact same environment may be present... but it won't make 'white' skin happen if that mutation never appears in the local genepool.

Really, dude - this is basic biology.

My favorite was where he said that nature made races able to breed under the assumption that we would be divided from one another. Apparently, nature has been plotting against our beliefs but tricking us by making all evidential arguments support our claims. That crazy nature and her faulty assumptions that we would always be isolated. She's a crazy witch.

My favorite was where he said that nature made races able to breed under the assumption that we would be divided from one another. Apparently, nature has been plotting against our beliefs but tricking us by making all evidential arguments support our claims. That crazy nature and her faulty assumptions that we would always be isolated. She's a crazy witch.

Nature is just mean!

Is it just me, or does Ny make evolution into a capricious, interventionist god?

Nature is just mean!

Is it just me, or does Ny make evolution into a capricious, interventionist god?

Don't forget racist. Evolution is also a fairly impotent god in NN's theories since it WANTED us to be separate species (no interbreeding) but forgot that we could, you know, walk and climb and couln't manage to stop us from breeding together. If only there was some mechanism that nature had to prevent things that are not meant to breed together from breeding. If only there was some way... like not producing offspring or at least not offspring that are viable. If only nature'd come up with something like that. Poor nature.

*SNIP*
You know what? I give up. You have no understanding of basic biology, genetics, evolution, or any real drive to actually learn anything that challenges your world view.

Your posts have become, if I may borrow the Bard for a second, "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and furry, signifying nothing".

Don't forget racist. Evolution is also a fairly impotent god in NN's theories since it WANTED us to be separate species (no interbreeding) but forgot that we could, you know, walk and climb and couln't manage to stop us from breeding together. If only there was some mechanism that nature had to prevent things that are not meant to breed together from breeding. If only there was some way... like not producing offspring or at least not offspring that are viable. If only nature'd come up with something like that. Poor nature.

Oh, I didn't say Ny's version of this Nature God was very good. Obviously, no god, no matter how powerful, would be able to predict that people won't just stay where you put them like so many beads. I mean... how couls such a god conceptualise an idea like walking from one palce to another? Craziness!

I'm finding myself thinking of the Tower of Babel story, and that little bit where God duffs in all the soldiers, except (obviously) the ones in iron chariots... and, I'm thinking, maybe it will be worth discussing this matter with Ny sometime in the next 2 or 3 thousand years...

The point is some genetic variation is enough. Maximizing it isnt needed or may not even be a good thing, in some cases.
:D Ok, if it makes you happy to believe so....

Remember I said how bad your reasoning is? Here's another example. Let me clarify for you. A mixed person might be more diverse then if he wasnt mixed. So we are comparing same person but in different situations. Get it now?
That's about as clear as mud.
More diverse in relation to what? What is a mixed person and that same person if not mixed (whatever the frig that means when it's not nonsense) more (in the first case) and less (in the second case) diverse to?

Original and unique genetic combination of the individual is lost but Original and unique genetic combination of the population/race might be preserved if there is not interracial mixing.
That doesnt make sense given the mechanics of inheritance.

That was the context. You should have understood it. Bad memory or reading incomprehension?
If you didnt post nonsense, you'd be more readily comprehended.

And I advise you to do lots of reading for your reading comprehension and some maths to develop your reasoning skills. I'll accept your recommendations when you UNDERSTAND what my posts mean correctly.
More fool you, but hey, whatever floats your boat honey.

Environmental conditions do not 'trigger mutations'.


Maybe trigger was a wrong word. However some environmental factors cause mutation, like radiation. And some environmental factors favour a mutation in which the unmutated gene may be taken off the gene pool by natural selection.


Er, no. Perhaps you are confusing 'gene' with 'allele' (the earlier being common within a species, the latter being the variant forms the earlier can take).


Ok, that was a stretch. However, one might have genes for alzheimer when one completely lacks those genes. I'm sure about alzheimer though however there are genetic conditions like that, I'm sure.


The overwhelming majority of mutations that occur are irrelevent in terms of evolution because most are not passed on to the next generation.


Yes but mutations are a big part of evolution whether most mutation are irrelevant or not.


Not in most cases, in most cases they are variant forms of the same gene (ie a different allele).


Even if we go by your definition of "not in most cases", it means there are some cases and that would invalidate Nervun's original claim.


Skin colour is neither dominant nor recessive. I'm not kidding when I tell you that your continued posting on issues you clearly lack even the most basic knowledge of, does you and your view points no favour in the credibility stakes.

Doubt it.


Ah biological dominant and everyday speech dominant again :rolleyes:

What I mean is that when a black and white breeds there is a very little chance of offspring being white. The offspring would probably be mixed which is not white. And other white traits like fair hair and eyes are indeed biologically recessive.

I can't believe you resurrected this topic to post things like this. Let's see... four attacks on his/her intelligence in a post that was just about twice as many sentences. How ironic, given the circumstances.

S/he replied to what you wrote. Your post was clear. It was just a poor argument that has no basis in biology. Quick, does biology do anything to encourage us to remain racially separated? I'll help you. No. It doesn't. Wow, the forces of nature find no benefit, the forces of logic find no benefit, but you who admit you're arguing to keep the world primarily populated by a pure white population just happen to make an argument for keeping races pure despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

Could be coincidence but given that we actually understand the basics of biology and genetics we recognize when an argument that 'unique genetic combinations' must be preserved denies the fact that natural law acts specifically counter to preserving 'unique genetic combinations'.

Golly, let's hear again about the aliens and lizards and plants. That's certainly your best argument. I can't wait.

Yeah, you understand basics of biology and genetics better than a professeur at Imperial College. Pathetic delusions. :rolleyes:

Don't forget racist. Evolution is also a fairly impotent god in NN's theories since it WANTED us to be separate species (no interbreeding) but forgot that we could, you know, walk and climb and couln't manage to stop us from breeding together. If only there was some mechanism that nature had to prevent things that are not meant to breed together from breeding. If only there was some way... like not producing offspring or at least not offspring that are viable. If only nature'd come up with something like that. Poor nature.

I guess this is what is called a mental masturbation :rolleyes:

Meanwhile I see that you 2 are only reduced to straw men. I wasnt arguing about "nature plans". I was arguing what is natural and what isnt and was speculating how someone can "know" about nature since Jocabia was yet in another ego delusion about knowing the intentions of nature. Even if you didnt get the irony, my speculative tone should have been clear by the fact that I started my sentences with "maybe". But, reading incomprehension again. :rolleyes:

We are not given the colour of our skin BY our environment. Some mutations find better survivability in some conditions, so they become more dominant in the geographical genepool.

In one area, the 'mutation' might generate a 'white' skin, and the environment might allow it to thrive. In another area, the exact same environment may be present... but it won't make 'white' skin happen if that mutation never appears in the local genepool.

Really, dude - this is basic biology.

Yeah that was my point. Conditions might be same but the outcome might differ since mutations arent linear. That was what I was discussing with Cabra West and Nervun but you jumped to the latest post. I guess all you are reduced are these cheap attempts.

Ok, what about China? Northern East Asia?

What about them?

"Black genes" would be the genetic information of blacks in those genes that causes their skin colour.

Which part of "there are no black gene, there is a combination of genes that regulate the amount of melantonin in our skin" didn't you understand?

Blacks don't have black genes, and whites don't have white ones. Everybody has all those genes, it's the combination of them that determines your skin colour.

Which part of "there are no black gene, there is a combination of genes that regulate the amount of melantonin in our skin" didn't you understand?

Blacks don't have black genes, and whites don't have white ones. Everybody has all those genes, it's the combination of them that determines your skin colour.

Shhh. You're confusing him with the facts.

What about them?


Which part of "there are no black gene, there is a combination of genes that regulate the amount of melantonin in our skin" didn't you understand?

Blacks don't have black genes, and whites don't have white ones. Everybody has all those genes, it's the combination of them that determines your skin colour.
Arrrr ... I've been blinded by science!

I guess this is what is called a mental masturbation :rolleyes:

Meanwhile I see that you 2 are only reduced to straw men. I wasnt arguing about "nature plans".


On the contrary. What you said was:

"Maybe nature made races able to breed with others on the assumption that they will be geographically seperated.

"nature made races...on the assumption"... those are your words... you anthropomorphosise nature, and talk about what nature 'assumes'.

Trying to backtrack now is less-than-convoncing.



I was arguing what is natural and what isnt and was speculating how someone can "know" about nature since Jocabia was yet in another ego delusion about knowing the intentions of nature. Even if you didnt get the irony, my speculative tone should have been clear by the fact that I started my sentences with "maybe". But, reading incomprehension again. :rolleyes:

And, there you go again, talking about "knowing the intentions of nature"...

And, there you go again, talking about "knowing the intentions of nature"...
You're having too much fun...:p

Yeah, you understand basics of biology and genetics better than a professeur at Imperial College. Pathetic delusions. :rolleyes:

If only ONE professor at Imperial College says one thing... if ALL the others sasy a different thing...

Is it a delusion to suspect the majority might be right?

I have to point out, for the sake of argument, that being a professor at a College doesn't equate with always being right. When I was in my first year at University, I had a long-running disagreement with a professor (quite a well-known name in his field, sufficiently recognised to have 'earned' a 'title') about hypothetical properties I claimed should be present in a certain molecular arrangement.

My professor told me, explicitly - in front of the assembled students - that I was wrong. Later that same semester, he introduced the exact same idea we had debated (without ever admitting his error, or apologising to me), because he had been shown evidence that was so compelling he had to admit the situation was otherwise than what he had argued.

Big professor. First year Chemistry student. The professor was wrong. The 19-year-old punk kid was right. It happens.

You're having too much fun...:p

I feel like I'm playing that tennis-game where the ball is tied to the little bat thing...

That was what I was discussing with Cabra West and Nervun but you jumped to the latest post. I guess all you are reduced are these cheap attempts.

I pointed out an error in the debate.

The way I debate, that is 'good form'... not 'a cheap shot'.

I'd appreciate it if you'd attack the arguments instead of attacking me. But, that's unlikely, isn't it?

Yeah that was my point. Conditions might be same but the outcome might differ since mutations arent linear. That was what I was discussing with Cabra West and Nervun but you jumped to the latest post. I guess all you are reduced are these cheap attempts.

Nobody says that mutations are linear. But similar environments will result in similar attributes in the lifeforms living in them.
As such, dolphins developed fins that work exactly the same way as those of any fish. And the same way human beings living for generations in areas with high UV radiation exposure will develop darker skin.
The genetic information regarding the level of melatonin in the skin (and therfore the shade of the skin) is not found on one single gene but on three, the combination of which will determine the eventual skin colour of the individual. Neither of the three is it linked to other outward features, such as height or curly hair.

Maybe trigger was a wrong word. However some environmental factors cause mutation, like radiation And some environmental factors favour a mutation in which the unmutated gene may be taken off the gene pool by natural selection.
You stated that Africa doesnt have the conditions to trigger particular mutations. I say you are talking nonsense. If you actually believe yourself that what you are saying has some basis rather than being pulled out of thin air, then name the particular mutations, and name the environmental conditions that triggered them, or should I take your attempt to worm out of what you actually said an admission of its absurdity on your part?


Ok, that was a stretch. However, one might have genes for alzheimer when one completely lacks those genes. I'm sure about alzheimer though however there are genetic conditions like that, I'm sure.
You are still confusing gene with allele.


Yes but mutations are a big part of evolution whether most mutation are irrelevant or not.
No one suggested otherwise.

Even if we go by your definition of "not in most cases", it means there are some cases and that would invalidate Nervun's original claim.
But not the original point, which is the important thing. The kind of occurence you are referring to is not relevent to the material being discussed. Every single gene present in every single genetically normal person, is present in all human populations.

Ah biological dominant and everyday speech dominant again :rolleyes:
What I mean is that when a black and white breeds there is a very little chance of offspring being white. The offspring would probably be mixed which is not white. And other white traits like fair hair and eyes are indeed biologically recessive.
What you stated was simply wrong. You claim
"...unmutated genes might be taken off of one population's gene pool by natural selection"
In the case of living humans there is not a single known instance of this having occurred. Every single evolutionarily gene known to exist in humans, exists in every known human group.
You claim
"If all Europeans had genes for black skin, there wouldnt be white europeans anymore since black skin is much more a dominant trait and it would erease the white skin by now"
This shows a basic misunderstanding. It also probably explains why you fail to recognise the very significant difference between 'dominance' and 'most prevailant'. That one allele is dominant to another does not necessitate that it will become more prevaliant (ie common).

I guess this is what is called a mental masturbation :rolleyes:

Meanwhile I see that you 2 are only reduced to straw men. I wasnt arguing about "nature plans". I was arguing what is natural and what isnt and was speculating how someone can "know" about nature since Jocabia was yet in another ego delusion about knowing the intentions of nature. Even if you didnt get the irony, my speculative tone should have been clear by the fact that I started my sentences with "maybe". But, reading incomprehension again. :rolleyes:

See there is another biological term you don't seem to understand. Masturbation involves one person. I know they teach that in health for 13-year-olds in the US. When do they teach that in Norway?

Now, you may want to associate this with sex just because we've been screwing you... up since you joined the forums, but really this is about the fact that you keep arguing things that defy basic biology.

Keep claiming it's the professor arguing, but it's not. He's not here talking to NERVUN or GnI or me or any of the other people making your arguments look silly. You are. And YOU don't know what you're talking about. You haven't the faintest hint. I suspect you think you're winning the argument with NERVUN for example, but anyone who understands how genetics really work is just trying not to choke on their gum when they read you trying to tell us about how being in Europe CAUSED white skin to mutate and how nature PLANNED to isolate humans from one another so it didn't bother to isolate us sexually.

Grab a pen. Jot down some notes from what you found here in this thread. Do a search. And start reading, my friend, because that's they only way anyone is ever going to buy that you know anything about genetics. Right now you don't even have the basic knowledge required to fake it. And in a thread where you're arguing genetics, it's kind of a requirement. Your arguments debunk themselves.

Arrrr ... I've been blinded by science!

It's poetry in motion.

On the contrary. What you said was:



"nature made races...on the assumption"... those are your words... you anthropomorphosise nature, and talk about what nature 'assumes'.

Trying to backtrack now is less-than-convoncing.




And, there you go again, talking about "knowing the intentions of nature"...

The mental masturbation comment was amusing. I love NN.

masturbation - : erotic stimulation especially of one's own genital organs commonly resulting in orgasm and achieved by manual or other bodily contact exclusive of sexual intercourse, by instrumental manipulation, occasionally by sexual fantasies, or by various combinations of these agencies

I assume he was attempting a metaphor, but since mental was most likely to repalce genital, then the fact that there are many of us would make it more of a mental orgy. NN should be happy he's getting all the attention in this orgy. Now, granted, it's mostly pointing and laughing at how small his 'argument' is, but still all the attention.

Meanwhile, he's still trying to pretend as if when we argue against him that we're really arguing with his source but given his source likely knows the difference between genes and alleles and the difference between the forces of nature that can be LOGICALLY analyzed and nature making 'assumptions' and having 'intentions', I would assume that arguing with the author of the article would be much different. The author probably would not be making mistakes regarding basic biology and genetics. Maybe they would, but they aren't here so we'll just have to tear apart NN's argument instead.

Meanwhile, GnI, if this is really some form of mental 'stimulation', you, Big Daddy, are rocking my world!!! ;)

The mental masturbation comment was amusing. I love NN.

masturbation - : erotic stimulation especially of one's own genital organs commonly resulting in orgasm and achieved by manual or other bodily contact exclusive of sexual intercourse, by instrumental manipulation, occasionally by sexual fantasies, or by various combinations of these agencies

I assume he was attempting a metaphor, but since mental was most likely to repalce genital, then the fact that there are many of us would make it more of a mental orgy. NN should be happy he's getting all the attention in this orgy. Now, granted, it's mostly pointing and laughing at how small his 'argument' is, but still all the attention.

Meanwhile, he's still trying to pretend as if when we argue against him that we're really arguing with his source but given his source likely knows the difference between genes and alleles and the difference between the forces of nature that can be LOGICALLY analyzed and nature making 'assumptions' and having 'intentions', I would assume that arguing with the author of the article would be much different. The author probably would not be making mistakes regarding basic biology and genetics. Maybe they would, but they aren't here so we'll just have to tear apart NN's argument instead.

Meanwhile, GnI, if this is really some form of mental 'stimulation', you, Big Daddy, are rocking my world!!! ;)


:D

Maybe he thinks the debate is some kind of 'circle jerk' (I believe that's what they call it..) In which case, I assume he feels bitter because he is 'left playing by himself', so to speak?

But, to follow Ny's model... if we assume a form of 'mental masturbation' where these 'massed debators' are each stimulating the other mentally, until some culmination of thought is reached by all partners...

How is that a bad thing?

:D

Maybe he thinks the debate is some kind of 'circle jerk' (I believe that's what they call it..) In which case, I assume he feels bitter because he is 'left playing by himself', so to speak?

But, to follow Ny's model... if we assume a form of 'mental masturbation' where these 'massed debators' are each stimulating the other mentally, until some culmination of thought is reached by all partners...

How is that a bad thing?

It sounds like a good thing to me. :)

But why are we bothering to feed the troll? Responding to Ny Nordland doesn't seem very useful at this point. His posts are generally self-defeating, and the points he makes have been soundly thrashed by others already.

It sounds like a good thing to me. :)

But why are we bothering to feed the troll? Responding to Ny Nordland doesn't seem very useful at this point. His posts are generally self-defeating, and the points he makes have been soundly thrashed by others already.

The actual reason?

Okay, I'll come clean.

There has always been a 'racist' element to nationstates. It is a political game, it invites a certain degree of political extremity. Sometimes, the 'racist' element has been charismatic, and sometimes the racist element has just been ripping material off of 'white power' websites.... but they all provide something... they provide a 'focus' for the possibility of growing racist sentiments among impressionable people...

So - when I debate with Ny, what I am really doing is providing a voice... allowing people who might be convinced by a strong-sounding argument, to see that this racist platform is really just so much shadow-boxing. An attempt to identify an 'other', because we just don't know how to fix what is wrong with our societies.

Ny is probably a lovely perswon when you get to know him/her... but his/her REAL use to me, is that they provide a good example of the average racist platform... a pretense at being about 'saving' something, coupled with some 'almost scientific sounding' ideas. Indeed, Ny is better than most for this function, because he/she does so little research, and provides so little evidence.

Debunking Ny isn't hard, or especially satisfying... but it is 'important', for the greater good.

Yeah, you understand basics of biology and genetics better than a professeur at Imperial College. Pathetic delusions. :rolleyes:

How ironic.Have you actually read what your proffesor says?Or maybe your lack of understanding of genetics is not allowing you to comprehend your own posted article?
I dont see why you bother to post at all, you dont seem to want to debate,you see the whole idea is, you post an article and make a statement.Then,people disagree and debate, and the whole result is that everyone becomes more enlightened.As js mill once said(in similar words)that there is an element of truth in every arguement, but a single veiwpoint rarely contains the whole truth.It would be good of you to remember this rather than stooping to the lowest possible level of debate,by attacking those who disagree with you.
Seriously,you really do seem to have an agenda.It is as if your trying to 'enlighten' fellow NSers by attempting to turn them to your point of veiw(namely that whites europeans are superior)This is serious tribal(if not medevil)thinking and is not in keeping with the present knowledge of genetics(at the highest level of science,or even at high school level)My sister is 13 and is learning(in high school) about the kind of genetics you seem to be unable to grasp.
In fact, you haven't even properly backed up your article, certainly you seem to have just posted it in order to be able to spout your racist tripe.
If you insist on posting articles, at least defend them properly with a good knowledge of what they contain(and you should certainly expect people to disagree with you)Or perhaps, post something (for once) that has no racial connotations,no hidden agenda,no white supremacy.Maybe then people may stop thinking of you as a racially obsessed white supremacist,and actually listen to you and respect your opinion.But I guess thats too much to hope for.

The actual reason?

Okay, I'll come clean.

There has always been a 'racist' element to nationstates. It is a political game, it invites a certain degree of political extremity. Sometimes, the 'racist' element has been charismatic, and sometimes the racist element has just been ripping material off of 'white power' websites.... but they all provide something... they provide a 'focus' for the possibility of growing racist sentiments among impressionable people...

So - when I debate with Ny, what I am really doing is providing a voice... allowing people who might be convinced by a strong-sounding argument, to see that this racist platform is really just so much shadow-boxing. An attempt to identify an 'other', because we just don't know how to fix what is wrong with our societies.

Ny is probably a lovely perswon when you get to know him/her... but his/her REAL use to me, is that they provide a good example of the average racist platform... a pretense at being about 'saving' something, coupled with some 'almost scientific sounding' ideas. Indeed, Ny is better than most for this function, because he/she does so little research, and provides so little evidence.

Debunking Ny isn't hard, or especially satisfying... but it is 'important', for the greater good.

See, I agree with you on this GnI, but I think more people would actually see it if the opponents actually took the time to make their argument seem sound.

People are bored with the 'you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with expert X, so the fact that I'm clueless on the issue isn't something you should bring up' tactics. We're bored with the 'you can't read and you're an idiot and if you respond with anything resembling the way I talk to you I'm telling' tactics. I mean, wouldn't it be better for our argument if his was actually was remotely sound or at least his argument style was?

I challenge someone to count the number of times in this topic NN says someone can't read, not to one person, but to EVERYONE who disagrees with him.

I know it seems silly but I miss the quality racist arguments. This one is just silly.

And what is natural? Do blacks reach here via natural means? Do they let themselves on the ocean and let the natural waves do the transportation? Do they walk here? No, they use boats or planes usually, which are unnatural human inventions. Similarly most of them come here due to artificially created economical divisions.

So by that same reasoning its unatural to be living in an scandinavian country? Because its only due to human inventions that we can live in those sort of environments, clothes, fire, etc..
Also as the only way to walk into Norway or sweden is through finland, there should be no-one living there. impossible without technology.
What about the british isles, iceland, japan or any other island around the globe?
The americas? Only native americans that can prove their ancestors came across the Bering straight allowed!!!

An interesting read... (same sight as the OP article: http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Goodman/)

Two Questions About Race

By Alan Goodman*


The billion or so of the world's people of largely European descent have a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else; they are a race. At a smaller scale, three million Basques do as well; so they are a race as well. Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences.
—Armand Leroi, The New York Times 3/14/05

Instead of obsessing about race, we could try to build a race-blind society. Instead of feeding the fires of neuroticism, we could start teaching people to forget about race, to move on. But to do that, first we must sideline the entire race relations industry - whose only function, it seems, is to make us all deeply anxious about 'race' - a concept they simultaneously believe has no objective reality.
—Sean Thomas, Sunday Telegraph (London) 3/13/05


While Armand Leroi’s (2005) editorial in The New York Times proposes that race is everywhere as a shorthand for genetic variation, Sean Thomas’ (2005) essay in the Sunday Telegraph, published just a few hours earlier, advocates for forgetting about race, “to move on.”1 Leroi’s concept "with no great precision" harks back to a 19th century understanding of race as all-explaining and biologically based. Conversely, Thomas asserts that race has “no objective reality.” The problem is not so much that Leroi and Thomas have nearly diametrically opposed views on race. The problem is that they are both wrong.

In this essay, I propose that debates about race often ride upon two questions: “Is race a useful categorization to describe human biological variation?” and “Is race a useful categorization for tracking sociopolitical injustices?” Contra Leroi, I argue that race is no longer the right way to describe biological variation. Contra Thomas, I argue that race is not a mere social construct, but as a lived experience has devastatingly real effects.

As in the case of Leroi, many scientists in the US would probably answer the first question in the affirmative. In doing so, they conflate the idea of race with the reality of human geographic variation. Since Lewontin (1972), it has been clear that race fails to explain the vast majority of human genetic diversity. Moreover, processes such as evolution and cultural history better explain what is statistically left over to race. Armand Leroi’s conceptual error, one of racialization of diversity, has the potential to do harm, especially when coupled with a strong belief in the power of genetics. Moreover, with better explanations available, it is unnecessary to hammer away at questions regarding genetic diversity using the same blunt and dull instrument of race.

Thomas (2005) does not directly disagree with Leroi (2005) because he is presumably focused on the social reality of race, the second question. In suggesting that we ought to forget about race, Thomas makes two entirely different errors. First, he treats race as a biosocial unity that cannot be broken apart. Thus, if race is not real biologically, it must not be real at all. Second, he ignores the real consequences of racialization and racism.



Leroi’s Error: Conflating Race and Biodiversity

Although the word is somewhat unfashionable, and may even be considered politically incorrect, race is a good short word…
—Teresa Overfield, Biological Variation in Health and Illness, 1995:1.

Nearly every Western natural historian/physician/scientist once took for granted that the idea of race was the same as human biological variation. The idea that humans were divisible into racial types, a European folk idea, was assumed to be scientifically right, and very few scientists or nonscientists questioned the assumption. Through constant use, the idea of race was fixed and reified as human diversity.

In the middle of the 20th century, a few scientists realized that race was not the same as human biological variation. In Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, Montagu (1942) considered race to be a myth because race was a typological rather than an evolutionary concept. Human variation was unstable and races could not be reliably defined. Two decades later, Brace (1964) proposed a nonracial approach to human variation that emphasized continuous or clinal variation and Livingstone (1962) wrote that there are no races, only clines. Ehrich and Holm (1964) clearly pointed out that traits tended to be nonconcordant. Thus, for example, skin color would not predict other “deeper” human characteristics. Race was only skin deep.

Until the 1970s, one could be excused from thinking race both categorized and explained human biological variation because there was not very much data to think beyond the existing, powerful and thoroughly reified racial worldview (Smedley, 1999). Since Lewontin (1972), however, an accumulation of data on human genetic variation has made it easier to think beyond race. Nonetheless, as a tribute to the power of the idea of race, many such as Leroi and Overfield still believe that race is a useful way to characterize human variation. In a nursing textbook Overfield writes on the very first page “race is a good short word.” Reliability and validity, upon which race scores very poorly, are critical criteria for a scientific concept. Conversely, I am fairly certain that word length is not.



True Believers and De Facto Believers

There is a spectrum of views among contemporary scientists like Leroi who still assert race is a useful classification for human biological variation. On one end stand scientific “true believers” who treat races as natural entities. The primary difference between this position and racial typologists of the early 19th century is that 21st century scientists assert that evolution, rather than god, created “races.” These racial “true believers” include evolutionary anthropologists Vince Sarich (Sarich and Miele, 2004) and psychologist J. P. Rushton (1995), now the president of the Pioneer Fund. Rushton is infamous for promoting the idea that races evolved either brains (meaning big heads), or brawn (meaning large muscles, and sex organs).

On the other end of the spectrum are the “de facto believers,” an otherwise respectable group of scientists that encompasses Leroi. What separates this group from the true believers is that they understand races as statistical approximations rather than natural types, asserting race as a de facto stand-in for the messy patterns of human biological variation. Sally Satel (2002), for example, the author of a prior New York Times piece titled “I am a Racially Profiling Doctor,” concurs that humans do not vary much genetically and race is a crude approximation of this human variation. She goes on to say that race might not be necessary in a near future of individualized genetic analysis. According to the “de facto believers” of race, we are merely passing through an awkward adolescent phase in which we still need to racialize human variation. While they grasp some of the limits of race, they neither grasp the potential harm nor the lack of necessity to racialize human variation.

Is race a reasonably useful shorthand for human biological variation? A first test of this question would examine whether race statistically explains or correlates with a significant portion of human genetic variation. A second test considers whether the idea of race explains the process by which variation comes about.



Test 1: Is Human Variation Racial?

In a classic article published in 1972 Richard Lewontin estimated the proportion of human variation that could be statistically explained by races. If the relative degree of variation among races is great compared to the variation within a single race, then one might suggest that subspecies/races are statistically real. On the other hand, if the relative degree of variation among races is small compared to the variation within a race, then races are less statistically real.

Lewontin took data on blood group polymorphisms (those that have two or more alleles in high frequency such as blood types A, B, AB and 0) and tested how much variation was explained at three levels: within local groups, within a race but among local groups, and among races. He found that on average 85.4% of variation was explained at the local level and only 6.3% among races. Since Lewontin, a series of papers using larger and larger data sets have replicated his results (see review of Brown and Armelagos, 2001) demonstrating once again that “race” does not statistically explain much. Humans fail the test for biological races (Templeton, 1998).

It may seem surprising that a species with such a wide geographic range would display so little variation among races or continental groups. However, the apportionment of variation makes sense when one considers the history of our species and in particular its youth, steady mobility, and constant openness to ideas and other peoples.



Test 2: Explaining Human Variation

Statistically explaining “a little bit” about something may actually end up doing more harm than good if one begins to forget the "lack of precision" of the concept. This is the first problem when one substitutes race for human variation: one tends to forget about the 94% of variation that race fails to statistically explain. The test I now put to race-as-genetics is not statistically, but conceptually. Is race merely a poor correlate of human genetic variation or does it help to explain the underlying processes by which variation comes about? Consider the following.

Racial definitions and boundaries change over time and place. Thus, race is an inherently unstable and unreliable concept. That is fine for local realities but not so for a scientific concept. The importance of this point is that a bio-racial generalization that appears true at one time and place is not necessarily as true in another time and place. We just don’t know. One of the first lessons of science is to not base a generalization on a shifting concept, which is exactly what race is.

The idea of race can only divide human diversity into a small number of divisions. That is the limit. This might have been all that one could do before the advent of parametric statistics, multivariable analyses, and computers. But, now we can do so much more.

Because race is used in medicine and other fields as a way to categorize both genetics and lived experience, what passes as the result of genetic difference may actually be due to interactions or some aspect of lived experience. Using race tends to conflate genetics and lived experience (Goodman, 2001).

I am pessimistic about how the subtle reuses of race in genetics will eventually merge with virulent racists. This does not mean that I want to hide anything about human variation. Rather, it means that we need to study human variation precisely.

I advocate for de-racializing biological variation simply because there is always a more precise and meaningful way to characterize and explain those myriad variations.



Location, Location, Location

In the real estate industry there is a general rule that three things primarily determine housing prices: location, location and location. A similar refrain applies in the case of human genetic variation. Geographic location is the best single explanation for human genetic variation. There is no more powerful piece of information for predicting the genetic makeup of either an individual or a group than knowing from where on the map they originate. Furthermore, the degree of genetic variation between any two human groups is almost entirely explained by the geographic distance between them: Genetic and geographic distances are almost perfectly correlated (Templeton, 1998).

Although highly correlated with genetic variation, geographic location, however, is not in itself an explanation for genetic variation. Complex questions about human variation come down to specifics about our early evolution and migration out of Africa, subsequent movements of migrating populations, adaptive struggles, and stochastic events. To begin to put together these puzzle pieces, requires multiple lines of evidence and inquiry. Human diversity is the end result of two complex, interrelated and fascinating processes: evolution and history.

For example, one might ask, “Why do some individuals have sickle cell trait? Is it because of their race?” The answer to this question is clearly “no.” Race is a poor explanation for the distribution of sickle cell trait, which occurs in high frequencies only in particular regions of Africa while also occurring in high frequencies in parts of Asia and Europe. Rather, sickle cell trait can be understood as a fascinating history involving agricultural intensification, clearing of lands, breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and so on (Livingstone, 1958).

Sickle cell is but one example of how evolution and cultural history explain not only the distribution of particular traits, but how particular traits come about. This is one specific example of the profoundly biocultural processes of evolution and history. I want to propose that if we think race is an explanation or even if we use it as a statistical proxy, we are less likely to conceptually understand how variation arises and is distributed.



Thomas’s Error: The Color Blind Bind

Americans and much of the world’s population have been conditioned to think of race as a fuzzy jumble of behavior, culture, and biology: a deep and primordial mix of a bit of culture and a lot of nature. Thus, to say that race is not real in one way (as a shorthand for human biological variation) and is real in another way (as a way to group and track lived experience) is indeed confusing. Isn’t race simply real or not? If Leroi is wrong, isn’t Thomas right?

The idea that race is a social construct derives in part from natural scientists like Lewontin who maintain that race is a myth, or more precisely that the concept does not capture human diversity. It also derives in part from a misunderstanding of the notion of historical or social construction. Even though race was invented and made to seem real by social humans, and even though race makes little sense on the genetic level, this does not mean that it is not real in other ways. Thomas makes the mistake of thinking that because race is a social construct, race cannot have real effects. To the contrary, processes of racing, racializing, and practicing racism have enormous and powerful consequence for human wealth and health.



Race Is and Race Isn’t

There are different potential paths to racial justice. Some of my colleagues on the left have taken the path of seeing race as both genetically and socio-politically real (see Mosley, 1997 for example). This strategy involves trying to erase the negative biological association of the concept while providing equal opportunity. This message, that race is real, has the advantage of simplicity, but it may not work in the long run.

My own position is basically the same as that of the American Anthropological Association (http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm) and is only slightly more complex. This position reaffirms the salience of race as lived experience while calling for a new vocabulary and concepts to study human biological variation. Like Mosley’s position, this position is grounded in a commitment to social justice. In contrast to Mosley’s position, it is scientifically correct.

In summary, there is no good scientific reason beyond word length, convenience, and maintenance of the status quo (laziness in short), to continue to racialize human variation. Moreover, doing so may cause harm. In this way, using “race” as shorthand for biological variation is a form of ideological iatrogenesis. Real human suffering may result from poor conceptualization of human variation. Yet, race is real as lived experience.

It is time, at least, to ask the right question. This question is not whether race is real, but in what ways do we make it a reality?

See, I agree with you on this GnI, but I think more people would actually see it if the opponents actually took the time to make their argument seem sound.

People are bored with the 'you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with expert X, so the fact that I'm clueless on the issue isn't something you should bring up' tactics. We're bored with the 'you can't read and you're an idiot and if you respond with anything resembling the way I talk to you I'm telling' tactics. I mean, wouldn't it be better for our argument if his was actually was remotely sound or at least his argument style was?

I challenge someone to count the number of times in this topic NN says someone can't read, not to one person, but to EVERYONE who disagrees with him.

I know it seems silly but I miss the quality racist arguments. This one is just silly.

Agreed. I would prefer stiffer competition. I would prefer to debate with someone who actually KNEW that material themselves.

As it is - we get this (as you say) "not arguing with me, you're arguing with expert X" scenario... like 'experts' are beyond reproach?

Believe it or not, I am an 'expert' in one or two fields. That doesn't make me always right on anything pertaining to my rough field of study.

To Jacobia and Grave_n_idle.

it either of you were to play devils advocate could you offer a more convincing argument than Nordland has been?

To Jacobia and Grave_n_idle.

it either of you were to play devils advocate could you offer a more convincing argument than Nordland has been?

I'm sure I could, if I chose to do so. My research is usually much more thorough, and I have a background in sciences.

I won't attempt it, though... because I'd be worried I might accidentally convince someone.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cullons
To Jacobia and Grave_n_idle.

it either of you were to play devils advocate could you offer a more convincing argument than Nordland has been?


I'm sure I could, if I chose to do so. My research is usually much more thorough, and I have a background in sciences.

I won't attempt it, though... because I'd be worried I might accidentally convince someone.

Since the basic foundation of the "scientific method" is to construct the MOST flimsy theory (hypothesis) possible to describe the observed behavior, so that it becomes as "sensitive" to testing as possible,..

GIVE IT A SHOT, and make it as convincing as possible, so as to expose, in as blatant a way possible, the things that should be looked for within "believers" arguments so as to unmask their "wrongness"..!

YOU ARE THE DUDE, Grave, when it comes to fabulous arguments.

Use your Super-Powers for GOOD, ol' bud..!! :)

-Iakeo

I love it how you act like you let this one trick pony that is "Ny Nordland" get to you. Why discuss with that sorry wank at all? Just boycott him if you want him to go away.

What about them?


When you are replying to a post, can your brain consider only one post at a time? Go back and read what you were answering to at the first place.


Which part of "there are no black gene, there is a combination of genes that regulate the amount of melantonin in our skin" didn't you understand?

Blacks don't have black genes, and whites don't have white ones. Everybody has all those genes, it's the combination of them that determines your skin colour.

And whites have the white combinations while blacks have the black combinations.
Thats why I used black genes in quotes. I suggest you educate yourself about the usage of quotes.

I love it how you act like you let this one trick pony that is "Ny Nordland" get to you. Why discuss with that sorry wank at all? Just boycott him if you want him to go away.

second that! This thread goes on forever... :D

:D Ok, if it makes you happy to believe so....


Do you think it is a question of believing? Ashkenazi jews are genetically very homogenous but their health is fine. And on "per-capita basis", they are the people who produced most scientists and nobel winners. This might have to the with their heavy emphasis on studying but it might also have to do with their high iq's or both. Now, if these jews were to mix with blacks to increase genetic variation, they might become a little bit more healthy, like being more resistant to malaria for ex (which would be very useful for them, I'm sure). But also, they might loose some iq which might cause their intellectual achivements to lessen in future. ( Source of iq claim (http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf) )

So by this aliens' and other Earth species' genes being included to humans talk, I just speculated about how this maximizing genetic variation arguments are ridiculous. Sometimes, instead of mixing, the best traits should be chosen.


That's about as clear as mud.
More diverse in relation to what? What is a mixed person and that same person if not mixed (whatever the frig that means when it's not nonsense) more (in the first case) and less (in the second case) diverse to?


Ok.

Person A: Mixed with recent ancestors from all continents.
Person B: Purer.

Situation 1: Everyone is like A
Situation 2: Everyone is like B.

So in situation 1, everyone is individually more diverse, compared to people in situation 2. But as a species, having mixed people as well as non-mixed people is more diverse than either everyone being mixed or everyone being pure.

Is it now clear?


That doesnt make sense given the mechanics of inheritance.

If you didnt post nonsense, you'd be more readily comprehended.

More fool you, but hey, whatever floats your boat honey.


Perhaps your knowledge isnt good enough to make sense of it. It certainly makes sense to Dr Leroi.

second that! This thread goes on forever... :D
Personally I think we need a NN quote generator, then we can have these arguments without him.

Nobody says that mutations are linear. But similar environments will result in similar attributes in the lifeforms living in them.
As such, dolphins developed fins that work exactly the same way as those of any fish. And the same way human beings living for generations in areas with high UV radiation exposure will develop darker skin.
The genetic information regarding the level of melatonin in the skin (and therfore the shade of the skin) is not found on one single gene but on three, the combination of which will determine the eventual skin colour of the individual. Neither of the three is it linked to other outward features, such as height or curly hair.

As usual you are wrong. While similar environments MIGHT result in similar attributes in the lifeforms living in them, there is no guarentee since a mutation which would be favoured by those 2 environments might NOT happen in BOTH populations living in those two different environments.

Personally I think we need a NN quote generator, then we can have these arguments without him.

It'd be much more complex than a one producing your idiotic 2 line posts.

It'd be much more complex than a one producing your idiotic 2 line posts.
See what I mean folks? All we need is a random quote selector that mangles biology knowledge along with some sort of insult relating to the personson's intellgence and/or reading abilty and no one would know the difference.

You stated that Africa doesnt have the conditions to trigger particular mutations. I say you are talking nonsense. If you actually believe yourself that what you are saying has some basis rather than being pulled out of thin air, then name the particular mutations, and name the environmental conditions that triggered them, or should I take your attempt to worm out of what you actually said an admission of its absurdity on your part?


I told you that trigger was a wrong word. But do you deny that some environmental factors favour a certain mutation?


You are still confusing gene with allele.


No one suggested otherwise.


I didnt say you suggested otherwise, I said you were downplaying it.


But not the original point, which is the important thing. The kind of occurence you are referring to is not relevent to the material being discussed.


Nervun was wrong at claiming everyone had every single gene with everyone else. And that was what I was responding to, whether relevant with the material being discussed or not.


Every single gene present in every single genetically normal person, is present in all human populations.


But some genes are common in one population while in others it's rare.


What you stated was simply wrong. You claim
"...unmutated genes might be taken off of one population's gene pool by natural selection"
In the case of living humans there is not a single known instance of this having occurred. Every single evolutionarily gene known to exist in humans, exists in every known human group.


Proof?


You claim
"If all Europeans had genes for black skin, there wouldnt be white europeans anymore since black skin is much more a dominant trait and it would erease the white skin by now"
This shows a basic misunderstanding. It also probably explains why you fail to recognise the very significant difference between 'dominance' and 'most prevailant'. That one allele is dominant to another does not necessitate that it will become more prevaliant (ie common).

It doesnt. But given the number of different populations on Earth, it does NECESSIATE in this case. If every white and black on the planet would mix, "black genes" would be prevaliant.

Ok.

Person A: Mixed with recent ancestors from all continents.
Person B: Purer.

Situation 1: Everyone is like A
Situation 2: Everyone is like B.

So in situation 1, everyone is individually more diverse, compared to people in situation 2. But as a species, having mixed people as well as non-mixed people is more diverse than either everyone being mixed or everyone being pure.

Is it now clear?

It's very clear. It's also very ignorant of genetics. You could argue that having mixed and non-mixed people seems more diverse to the untrained and you'd be right that it SEEMS more diverse to the untrained. However, it is not genetically or biologically more diverse no matter how many times or how many ways you restate it. Nothing you say is going to make us all forget basic biology.


Perhaps your knowledge isnt good enough to make sense of it. It certainly makes sense to Dr Leroi.

We're not arguing with Dr. Leroi. We're arguing with you. Dr. Leroi actually said something quite a bit different. Unless you're Dr. Leroi, you cannot speak for him. Quote him or quit embarrassing yourself.

See what I mean folks? All we need is a random quote selector that mangles biology knowledge along with some sort of insult relating to the personson's intellgence and/or reading abilty and no one would know the difference.

Here, I'll try -

"If you were able to reading you'd understand that having a pure white race on the majority of the planet while allowing other races to mix you'd have more diversity than if you mixed everyone together."

You have to through a couple of grammar mistakes. Then it sounds just like him.

Meanwhile, notice we are still having to hear about 'pure' people, despite the fact that such a things has no place in biology or genetics while he tries to claim that he is making a scientific argument.

He's not actually providing any debate. He's just here to preach and insult.

NN,

Honestly, all kidding aside. Read up on this subject. You don't realize it, I understand, but what you're claiming isn't even close to matching up with biology and genetics. And while one may come to different conclusions using the same knowledge, one MUST actually have some knowledge of a subject BEFORE trying to claim to be able to argue with others on the subject. Particularly if one is going to attack the reading comprehension and intelligence of others everytime they disagree with you.

An interesting read... (same sight as the OP article: http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Goodman/)



Another interesting read from same site:


Race and Crisis

By Jenny Reardon, Brady Dunklee, and Kara Wentworth*

Race, it seems, is new again. Every few decades for at least the past six, biologists have come forward with new data that they claim will finally reveal the truth about the biological meaningfulness of race in the human species. Each time a novel and powerful science is behind the purported revelation: population genetics in the 1950’s, molecular biology in the 1970’s, the genome sciences in the 1990’s and today. Armand Marie Leroi, in his March 14th 2005 editorial for the New York Times “A Family Tree in Every Gene,” joins this long tradition with his answer to the question about the biological reality of race in the human species: “races are real.”

We are not concerned that Leroi is going to settle the question and end debate. Nor do we seek here to “correct” Leroi, thereby providing our own answer to the race question in biology. Instead, we want to pose what we believe is the more urgent question at this time: Why is race new again? Why, in 2005, have we returned to the question of the biological meaning of race in the human? Why the cyclical return of these old debates? Focusing on these questions, we argue, reveals a much deeper problem. More than any given answer to the question about the biological meaning of race, even one published in the New York Times, it is how we have posed the question, and thus formed all our answers, that should give us cause for gravest concern.

Since the Nazi atrocities, nearly every effort to address “the race question” in biology has presumed that scientists can and should refine their use of race so as to advance scientific knowledge and exclude “social” discrimination (Reardon 2005). Such endeavors have taken for granted that science can and should be strictly delineated from society. Thus, no matter the particularities of any given claim (race is biologically meaningful when it is used to study human evolution; race is not biologically meaningful when the goal is to understand mental traits; etc.), most assume that science can and should be distinguished from ideology, that natural order exists in a separate domain from social order, and that scientific racism results from the latter (ideology, social order) posing as the former (science, natural order). It is this bifurcated conceptual framework, one that delineates science from society, and not any particular answer to “the race question” itself (e.g., the Leroi op-ed), that presents a great danger to both scientific inquiry and democratic governance. This danger, we demonstrate below, follows from the proclivity of such a framework to produce controversies—such as the ones generated by the 1994 publication of the The Bell Curve, and the one emerging over the Leroi op-ed, in which this essay participates—controversies that give extreme views about race leverage in scientific and public discourse (Herrnstein 1994; Leroi 2005).

Of course, all of the post WWII efforts to erect a protective wall between biology and society were intended to preclude just these sorts of breaches: Herrnstein and Murray’s assertion of innate racial IQ differences; Leroi’s celebration of a racial “gallery,” and so on. Political leaders and scientists alike built institutions and knowledge practices upon conceptual structures that separated biology from society precisely to ensure that social biases did not creep into the potent zone of science and create the conditions for the next biologized legitimation of discrimination (Reardon 2005). Why did their efforts fail?

Because, as much sociological and historical analysis of science has revealed, biology never existed separate from society (see, for example, Haraway 1991, Latour 1993, Jasanoff 2004). Efforts to clarify and delineate these two domains—and contravene racism—created split and distorted vision.

In particular, the effort to separate biology from society encouraged social scientists and humanists alike to turn a blind eye towards science. Thus, while scholars of society became very adept at bringing to light the constructed character of claims about race when they perceived them to have “social” origins, most did not bring these same critical skills to bear when they deemed the claims to be the product of legitimate science. Perhaps the most striking and important case of this oversight is social scientists’ and humanists’ embrace of the claim that gained media prominence in the mid-1990s: “scientists say race has no biological basis” (Alvarado 1995; Flint 1995; Hotz 1995). A closer, critical look at this claim reveals that scientists, like the noted human population geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza, were not arguing in these moments that all concepts of race had no biological meaning, only those concepts of race produced in society (Cavalli-Sforza 1994; Cavalli-Sforza and Bodmer 1999 [1971]); Reardon 2005). But rather than interrogating how scientists (in particular, geneticists) made their claims about the biological meaningless of race, sociologists, philosophers, and historians simply enrolled them in their efforts to prove that race was a social construction (Gates 1986; Appiah 1990; Fields 1990; Gilroy 2000). If scientists proved that race had no biological basis, then it had to be, they argued, social.

This approach to interpreting race encouraged biologists, social scientists and humanists alike to view biology as a distinct realm of knowledge production that should be policed for social and societal taint, but that normally functioned independent from society. Thus social scientists and humanists seldom monitored biologists’ concepts of race, as they fell outside their purview. Neither did biologists attend to the politics or the social embeddedness of their uses of race, for they considered their work scientific, and not social or political. As a result, concepts of race continued to be used in science that received virtually no sociological or humanistic attention; scientists continued to view their uses of race concepts as asocial and apolitical. Thus, the political and social valences of biologists’ work remained invisible to them, while the very existence of this work was unknown to most sociologists and humanists.

This bifurcated system remained viable as long as what it concealed remained palatable. However, once the scientific concepts of race, and the political and social ideas in which they were entwined, became extreme—meaning shared by few, and staking out positions generally taken to be racist—then both the scientific concepts of race, and the politics in which they were entangled, became impossible to ignore. At this point, the system broke down into crisis and controversy.

Over the years, sociologists and humanists have experienced these controversies as the periodic return of the idea of race in science. Biologists have experienced them as the periodic politicization of their work. For both sides, a crisis emerges. For the sociologists and humanists, it is that biological race has risen again. For the biologists, it is that something extreme enough to be recognized as political has emerged within their purportedly apolitical discipline. Both are the direct consequence of a system of thought that delineates the social and the political from the biological. Sociologists and humanists can only encounter race’s return when they fail to see it all along; biologists can only experience a shock of politicization when the ongoing political dimensions of their work are out of view.

Pitfalls of Crisis

These periodic crises of race and science create difficulties both for biologists and social scientists and humanists that extend beyond their subject matter, particularly when the crises spill over into the popular press. Once the politics of race and science reach far enough beyond the sensibilities of most biologists that they become impossible to ignore, and once these politics catch the attention of social scientists and humanists for the same reason, the only responsible course of action seems to be to attack, because the stakes seem too high, and the affront too great. For example, few thought that Herrnstein and Murray’s conclusions in The Bell Curve could be negotiated with. Instead, they were roundly condemned as racist and unscientific.

Such attacks have their attractions. In earlier drafts, we initially took Leroi’s bait and critiqued the antiquated political sentiments, the misrepresentations of current science, misunderstandings of sociological and humanistic knowledge about race, and the severity of medical and ethical implications presented in the piece. But the pleasure of this critique was accompanied by a vague uneasiness derived from our own disciplinary habits. Science and technology studies de-centers debunking and attack in favor of analyses that care for the science they critique. We were caught between our outrage and our training, and worse, found it impossible to make the arguments we wanted to without reifying the division between science and society. In each case we accused the author of biological incorrectness or political offense, thus reinforcing the divisions that enabled this controversy in the first place, and that Leroi’s op-ed seemed to make inevitable.

We have come to the conclusion that these attacks entail great risk. They hide from view the wide range of scientific views and debates about the proper meaning and use of race in science (Lewontin 1972; Marks 1995; Goldstein and Chikhi 2002; Risch, Burchard et al. 2002; Rosenberg 2002; Burchard, Ziv et al. 2003; Cooper, Kaufman et al. 2003; Collins 2004; Jorde and Wooding 2004; Mountain and Risch 2004; Royal and Dunston 2004). Practicing scientists hold a wide diversity of views on this topic, but a claim on one extreme of this range, and the subsequent attack on that extreme position, creates two competing and opposite factions where there were none before.

These two poles of the debate easily become positive and negative. Those expressing the extreme views make positive assertions. Everyone else attacks and attempts to negate these assertions rather than affirming one or proposing an alternative. And negating is always a weaker position.

In his New York Times op-ed, Leroi reinforces this polar model by establishing a false sense of two sides of the debate. In particular, he cites a recent supplement to the journal Nature Genetics as an opening salvo against the purported misguided consensus that human races do not exist in nature. In his depiction, the Nature Genetics authors face the truth and overcome a decades-long denial of the existence of race. But this depiction of the race and genetics debates misrepresents the Nature Genetics supplement at the center of Leroi’s arguments, and the broader context in which it is situated. Nature Genetics, in “Genetics for the Human Race,” does not support Leroi’s claims that “[r]ace is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences.” In fact, the Nature Genetics editors say “the use of race as a proxy is inhibiting scientists from doing their job of separating and identifying the real environmental and genetic causes of disease” [emphasis ours] (2004). The authors by and large are highly critical of the validity of the use of “race” in biology, especially in non-medical applications. No one in the supplement claims to be able to “write the genetic recipe” for racial groups, nor advocates “naming the painters” of the human “gallery” (Leroi 2005). Several authors, especially Mildred Cho and Pamela Sankar, in their article on forensic genetics, caution strongly that this sort of thinking is in fact socially and scientifically dangerous (Cho and Sankar 2004). Even Neil Risch, the Stanford geneticist whose controversial 2002 analysis of pre-existing data Leroi celebrates, maintains a commitment to the contingency—or “social construction” if you will—of racial groupings. Risch, writing with Mountain, in the Nature Genetics supplement states: “Racial and ethnic categories are proxies for a wide range of factors, potentially genetic and nongenetic” (Mountain and Risch 2004, S52). He and Mountain stress the limited, but valuable expedience, of these categories in fighting disease disparities.

Thus, any consensus among these Nature Genetics authors that “race is real” is the product of Leroi’s own making—and a very useful product indeed. It fuels the polarization (either you believe “race is real,” or you don’t) that in turn creates the statistical artifact upon which Leroi depends. Once there are two sides, responsible journalism and civil discourse dictate that each side should be given equal time and equal weight—Leroi, for example, should have a chance to respond to this Social Science Research Council website. Further, those who disagree with the instigators of controversy feel pressure to close ranks so that they might present the image of a unified front of opposition. This ends up giving even greater equivalence to the “opposite side.”

Possibly worse, a range of traditional and newer tools becomes newly available to the creators of the controversy, once it is up and raging. One is the Galilean victimization narrative in which a small vanguard group or individual is cast as being persecuted by the powerful Orthodox forces for their/his allegiance to the Truth. Another is a related anti-PC maneuver, in which the provocateurs deride those who disagree with them for having political bias, while they present themselves as politics-free. Both are operative in the Leroi editorial. In this piece, Leroi casts the Nature Genetics authors as a new wave of critical thinkers who are bold and clear-headed, capable of penetrating the ideological veil, despite peer pressure from the “liberal-minded” majority who are mired in political correctness, and thus unable to see the biological reality of race.

The result is a backhanded transfer of the burden of scientific proof, as well as a transfer of questions about credibility: by playing the Galileo and the PC cards, provocateurs put everyone else on the defensive regarding their facts and their objectivity, respectively. Anyone who argues against Leroi risks being labeled political. And in science, where much of one’s credibility hinges both informally and formally on being viewed as apolitical, this presents a serious risk. Indeed, scientists might choose not to respond to Leroi not because they agree with them, but because they do not want to be viewed as stooping to politics. In conversations with genome scientists we have heard evidence to support this impression.

The result of these controversies and the rhetorical traps they present is an oversampling and overweighting of a small vocal minority in scientific circles, both of which are further empowered by the majority’s response to it.

A Way Out

What can we do in the face of this dilemma? We cannot say that those biologists who have taken a position on race opposed to Leroi’s are not informed by politics, or—to rise to Leroi’s red-baiting—ideology. We cannot say this, because all scientists are political beings, and all knowledge production is a political process. We do not mean this in the sense of vulgar Lysenkoism, in which ideology operates as a blindfold. We mean it in the rich tradition of Foucault and critical science studies: at the same time as we produce power and knowledge, knowledge and power produce us (Foucault 1980; Haraway 1991; Rabinow 1996; Hacking 1999; Jasanoff 2004; Reardon 2005).

Instead, we propose that all involved view this entanglement not as an obstacle to overcome, but as the very life of the creative work of scientists. If scientists, sociologists and humanists regularly and rigorously attended to the politics of scientific knowledge production, then they could resist the binary rhetoric upon which Leroi’s very argument is founded and create a new form of discourse that opposes the false crises of race and biology. In so doing, we could change the question at the center of the race and science debates from “Is race real?” or “Who’s right about race?” to ”How does race happen?”

By asking this question, we would account for, and be accountable to, the patterns of language and practice that scientists use to produce race. We would gain a vision and vocabulary of the ways in which scientific production of race is always entangled with the production of subjects in society, and thus a human activity with great consequence for scientists and non-scientists alike.

The benefits of focusing on the engines and gears of scientific racialization, and the human actions such racialization enables, are manifest. Meaningful conversations that do not reduce to yes or no answers, or to polarized statements like “race is genetic” or “race is a social construct,” become possible. Fewer scholars are silenced, and the views of the vocal periphery are situated as several among many, all firmly grounded in their politics (Haraway 1991). A broader sampling of both scholarly and non-academic thought ensues, limiting the artifacts produced by a polarized system.

When “politics” is no longer an accusation, but a subject of inquiry, examination can replace recrimination. As a result, the multiplicity of biological concepts of race, and the human hand in creating, valuing and using them, come into view. Such acts of visualization open up more avenues for intervention. Seeing and acting reflectively heightens our ability to produce knowledge that is effective, while being caring, cognizant of and responsive to the diversity of the human species—not just at the genetic level, but at the cultural and moral level as well.

Lessons from Genomics

Claims about the revolutionary import of genomics are by now commonplace. However, rarely acknowledged are the revolutionary changes afoot in the very words and conceptual structures we use to communicate and interpret genomics. Nowhere is the need to recognize these conceptual shifts more urgent than in the race and science debates. In this domain of genomics discourse, we ignore with peril questions about the meaning and proper use of fundamental categories—such as racist, anti-racist, science, society, ideology, truth. In the past, it may have been possible to credibly sort racist, ideological statements about the biological meaningfulness of race produced in society from objective, scientific ones about the biological meaninglessness of race. But when biologists (including, but by no means limited to, Leroi) insist on their commitments to anti-racism just as strongly as the biological meaningfulness of race, the conceptual grounds for evaluation are no longer stable (Cavalli-Sforza 1994; Risch 2002).

Genome scientists’ frequent appeal to constructivist language can also indicate important conceptual dissonance (Dunklee 2003). It is common to read in genomics writing that race is a social construction. Yet at the same time, and often in the same paragraph, claims are made that race is genetically meaningful (Foster 2003).

Leroi, for example, argues for the biological reality of race while stating that “there is nothing very fundamental about the concept of the major continental races; they're just the easiest way to divide things up (Leroi, 2005).” Is this claim “social” or “biological?” How do these seemingly contradictory statements resolve themselves? How should we understand these juxtapositions?

While we might take this intermingling as instructive to the process of disciplinary integration that we advocate, such patterns of language do not warrant optimism. Without sustained attention to the ways in which categories that order human genetic diversity are produced, invocation of constructivism may amount to tokenism, and may block the very openings for human agency that social constructivist thought was intended to enable. But whatever the shortcomings of this use of constructivist language, it does indicate that a system of thought that divides race into the social and the natural is no longer tenable in a genomic age.

The power of genomics is open to question. Whether this emergent form of technoscience can fulfill its promise to ameliorate human suffering and promote human freedom remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that genomics is remaking the human along changing axes of racial differentiation. A system rooted in the division of biological and social, science and society, is ill-equipped to understand, let alone intervene in these productions.

That system’s dividing walls are already bursting at the seams. Rather than view moments like the current controversy as aberrations—freaks of discipline like the physiological mutants Dr. Leroi chronicles in his book (Leroi 2005)—we hope this might be a moment when scientists, social scientists and humanists can all recognize the limits and dangers of how we pose and answer questions about race and science. In the place of artificial divisions and cyclical crises, we advocate for a new, critical and caring biopolitics.

Another interesting read from same site:

You realize that the doctor posing the arguments that race is real is Dr. Leroi. You've searched and search and found another article that you think supports your claim and *gasp* it just happens to also be about Dr. Leroi. Could be a massive coincidence or it could be that the bulk of scientists don't agree with Dr. Leroi. Even the article you're offering here kind of makes a couple of asides that suggest that Dr. Leroi's research is fault.

Such as just in the first paragraph -
Nor do we seek here to “correct” Leroi

You're making this too easy, NN. I'm beginning to wonder if you're not just pretending to have these beliefs to make people who have these beliefs appear to base them on desperately faulty science.

Human Race Will Be Extinct Soon, Says Scientist.
then what?
Catshoolics will replace it?
Or arabists?

My cat said it a pity to let that f** race to be extinct, who will provide such nice garbage thereafter?

Nordland, could you please stop refering to "pure" races. There is no such thing.


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

In the case of living humans there is not a single known instance of this having occurred. Every single evolutionarily gene known to exist in humans, exists in every known human group.


I'm curious what about gene deletion? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_deletion)

Nordland, could you please stop refering to "pure" races. There is no such thing.

What? Dr. Leroi disagrees with NN? Impossible! NN has declared several times that to argue with him is to argue with Dr. Leroi. Haven't you heard him say that repeatedly? NN is trying to steal the expertise claims of Dr. Leroi in order to invalidate arguments he doesn't actually have the biology and genetic knowledge to comprehend. He knows we're not arguing with Dr. Leroi. We know we're not arguing with Dr. Leroi. Dr. Leroi may have a level of expertise in biology and genetics, but NN doesn't have that expertise nor even the level needed to support his arguments at even the most basic level.

What? Dr. Leroi disagrees with NN? Impossible! NN has declared several times that to argue with him is to argue with Dr. Leroi.

:( sorry:(

Haven't you heard him say that repeatedly? NN is trying to steal the expertise claims of Dr. Leroi in order to invalidate arguments he doesn't actually have the biology and genetic knowledge to comprehend. He knows we're not arguing with Dr. Leroi. We know we're not arguing with Dr. Leroi. Dr. Leroi may have a level of expertise in biology and genetics, but NN doesn't have that expertise nor even the level needed to support his arguments at even the most basic level.

I'm working on the assumption that anyone who is willing to debate a topic is willing to alter their own opinion when presented with new information (bit of a hope on NS I know). And i know alot of people miss-read articles when they feel it backs up their position. So i thought i'd mention it. that's all....

Oh and its not Dr. Leroi disagrees with NN, but that NN appears to be disagreeing with Dr. Leroi.

I just thought of the neatest little post-modern art project.

Take all of Ny Nordland's post and create a large text file with all of them.

When any race troll like NN comes by, somebody argues with the race troll using random quotes from this file, regardless of whether or not is applicable to the argument.

While it has neither the noble intent nor the noble effect of GnI's mandate, it would be a hilarious thread to read.

Do you think it is a question of believing?
What else is one to say to something so utterly devoid of meaning?
Someone pointed out to you that genetic diversity within a population is good for the health of the population. Without proving the current amount of diversity in the population being discussed (Homo sapiens sapiens, you state (without any evidence whatsoever) that there is some unspecified amount of diversity that is 'enough' (whatever that means in such a context). You then go onto to state (without any evidence whatsoever) that there is no need for maximisation of diversity and that doing so might not be a good thing.
NN the point is, even if your assertion that there is an amount of diversity (referred to by you as 'some) that is 'sufficient' (whatever that means in this case), nothing you have said indicates what that amount is, much less demonstrates that it currently exists. Even if we accept that an 'unspecified amount' is 'not insufficient', it doesnt counter the point raised by the poster who first stated the correlation between population health and genetic diversity. Assuming you could prove that 'some is enough...' you'd still have a lot more to prove before you would have made any point relevent to current issues.

Ashkenazi jews are genetically very homogenous but their health is fine.
You dont think being 200 times more likely to have Tay-Sachs than everyone else suggests otherwise?

And on "per-capita basis", they are the people who produced most scientists and nobel winners.
Proving absolutely nothing whatsoever about their genetics.

This might have to the with their heavy emphasis on studying but it might also have to do with their high iq's or both.
Another words there is no evidence that this correlation has any cause outside socio-cultural factors, but you sure as heck wont let a little thing like that hold you back.

[/quote]Now, if these jews were to mix with blacks to increase genetic variation, they might become a little bit more healthy, like being more resistant to malaria for ex (which would be very useful for them, I'm sure). But also, they might loose some iq which might cause their intellectual achivements to lessen in future. ( Source of iq claim (http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf) )[/QUOTE]
NN, honestly, you cannot possibly understand the basic mechanics of human reproduction, because if you did you would understand how such statements make you look (ie not particularly well informed).

So by this aliens' and other Earth species' genes being included to humans talk, I just speculated about how this maximizing genetic variation arguments are ridiculous. Sometimes, instead of mixing, the best traits should be chosen.
Your speculation doesnt prove a darn thing. Firstly if there is some ideal amount of diversity or even some amount whereby any further increase adds no value, you have not proved that this is the case, nor have you proved what that amount would be, much less that such an amount currently exists in the gene pool of the species concerned. In fact our species is remarkably homogenous, so it seems that in the unlikely event you could prove that there was some ideal specific amount of diversity (or at least some amount at which further increases did not result in further benefit), and you could prove how much that amount was, it is as good as certain that the amount specified would exceed the current amount of diversity in the human gene-pool.

Evidently the notion of 'choosing the best' is yet another example of a poor understanding of evolutionary processes. In evolution the closest we have to 'good' is 'adapted'.
Ok.

Person A: Mixed with recent ancestors from all continents.
Person B: Purer.

Situation 1: Everyone is like A
Situation 2: Everyone is like B.

So in situation 1, everyone is individually more diverse, compared to people in situation 2. But as a species, having mixed people as well as non-mixed people is more diverse than either everyone being mixed or everyone being pure.

Is it now clear?

Whether or not it is clear, it is incorrect. People are not individually diverse, people are only diverse in the context of others. However the fundamental point you are well and truely missing is that diversity isnt about how different people may or may not be to each other, it's about the degree of uniformity/differentiation present in the gene pool.
Example:
2 groups of organisms,
Group 1 = 4 members, 2 pairs, each with 100 alleles.
Pair 1 (group 1) each share 99 of the same alleles, between them the pair has a total of 101 unique alleles.
Pair 2 (group 1) each share a different 99 alleles, between them they have 101 alleles.
In the Group 2 we have again 4 members each with 100 alleles,
All four share 70 alleles, and each has 30 alleles not shared by any other member.
The first group is less diverse than the second group even though all the members of the second group are more similar to each other than either pair in the first group is to the other. Further the amount of extra diversity in the second set is substantial - nearly double! In the context of this discussion the first group is the one who's diversity pattern correlates to your situation B and the second group is what we would expect in sitution A.

Perhaps your knowledge isnt good enough to make sense of it. It certainly makes sense to Dr Leroi.
It's not necessarily impossible.:D

I told you that trigger was a wrong word.
Given the context of the word's use, it is clear that the meaning intended was that the environment played a causal role in the occurance of mutations specifically suited to the environment. That's not true, whatever word you use.
But do you deny that some environmental factors favour a certain mutation?
I dont deny that mutations that effect phenotypes in a way that imparts either an adaptive advantage or disadvantage in the environmental context in which they exist, can result in differential reproductive success, rendering the underlying mutation subject to natural selection. If you'd stated as much I wouldnt have claimed otherwise, but you very clearly implicated the environment as a causitive agent that not only could induce mutations, but induced mutations that specifically conveyed an adaptive advantage within that environment.


I didnt say you suggested otherwise, I said you were downplaying it.
You are still mistaken. Nothing was being downplayed. Concentrating on what is materially relevent is not downplaying what isnt, it's simply concentrating on what is materially relevent.

Nervun was wrong at claiming everyone had every single gene with everyone else. And that was what I was responding to, whether relevant with the material being discussed or not.

There is no evidence that I am aware of that Nervun was wrong. Can you evidence a single proven case where a currently living human being has a gene that is amongst humans unique to them only? I dont know of any such case.

But some genes are common in one population while in others it's rare.
No, that's not the case. It is alleles (not genes) that are unevenly distributed across populations/clines.

Proof?
Right, where is your proof. You stated that X could happen, I claimed the contrary. The burden of evidence is on you since you initiated the claim being disputed and since you are arguing in the affirmitive while I am arguing a negative.

It doesnt.
Yet you earlier clearly stated that it does.

But given the number of different populations on Earth, it does NECESSIATE in this case. If every white and black on the planet would mix, "black genes" would be prevaliant.
Well this is an entirely different argument to the one you offered earlier.
Firstly it isnt the people that mix. Perhaps what you mean is if every white person were to reproduce with only black person and black persons only with white person, then the resulting 'next generation' would have a gene pool in which 'black alleles' (whatever they are) predominated?
If so, that doesnt make sense, each 'black person' could only have one baby for each 'white person', ergo each reproducer would only pass their alleles along at the same rate as every other. The result would be equal representation of the parent generation in the 'mixed' generation. If (as your argument requires) there are currently more 'black alleles' in the human population than 'white alleles' (whatever that means) then in fact the mixing described above would result in an increase in the number of 'white alleles' relative to 'black alleles'.

I'm curious
Excellent!

what about gene deletion? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_deletion)
What about it?:p

Alright, enough of the funny business, I'll take a guess with regards to the 'what'...
Firstly: in regards to . "Every single evolutionarily gene known to exist in humans, exists in every known human group" gene deletion isnt really relevent because it occurs in the case of individuals within populations (not to the entire population).
Secondly (and more specifically I suspect) an individual with gene deletion does not necessary have an absence of any particular gene. The problem with gene deletion occurs when part of a chromosome is missing, however all autosome chromosomes (that is all but X and Y, the sex determining chromosomes) occur in a chromosomally normal human in pairs, so if a person is missing genes X, Y, and Z on one of their 16th chromosomes, they still have one copy of each gene on their other 16th chromosome.

One other point, the comment was in response to 'unique genes' that were being posited as existing in some populations and not others, so the answer was referring not to everyone having every gene, but rather to an absence of people with genes that are unique to them or unique to a sub-section of humanity (rather than an assertion that everyone has every gene).

And one last point, in light of your curiosity, it might (and I hope will) interest you to know that the converse situation (to gene deletion) also occurs. That is in some cases people receive extra genetic material. This can occur through disjunction (when chromosome pairs seperate into different gametes [ova or spermatoza] sometimes a pair fails to seperate and a gamete ends up with an extra copy of a chromosome (this is referred to as trisomy and is a cause of Downs Syndrome). Also, just as chromosomes with missing fragments can be inherited, so too can chromosomes with excess fragments - an interesting example is when a XX person receives certain material from their father's Y chromosome. The result is a person who is chromosomally female, but has most of the attributes of a male.

Hope this helps.
Keep up the curiosity!:D

snip

thanks. interesting.

yeah landed up reading up on these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome#Chromosomal_aberrations)

Since the basic foundation of the "scientific method" is to construct the MOST flimsy theory (hypothesis) possible to describe the observed behavior, so that it becomes as "sensitive" to testing as possible,..

GIVE IT A SHOT, and make it as convincing as possible, so as to expose, in as blatant a way possible, the things that should be looked for within "believers" arguments so as to unmask their "wrongness"..!

YOU ARE THE DUDE, Grave, when it comes to fabulous arguments.

Use your Super-Powers for GOOD, ol' bud..!! :)

-Iakeo

Ah, my friend. Tis good to see you.

I am actually working a theory at the moment, which I am considering putting on the table at some point. I intensely dislike the idea of doing so - because, while I may use my model as theory to test... and while many others would 'get' that... I am sad to say there are also those that wouldn't. Thus - I risk getting myself branded as a racist (which doesn't bother me too much - how other people perceive me rarely causes me to lose sleep), but I also risk people missing the point and being attracted by the arguments I'd make. That worries me more - the idea that my damage would spread further than I could control.

Of course - I have attacked my own models long ago, and since then, too. I don't just opt for what is commonly accepted in any arena. But, I knew what I was doing... and putting a little knowledge in the hands of others is a dangerous thing.

Add to this, of course - I'm not really sure what my devil's advocate argument is supposed to 'prove'.... the racial inferiority of one group? The need to 'preserve' the 'race' divides??


If we were just going for a standard 'racial purity' angle... The first thing that would have to be present in such an argument, would be a focus. Ny attracts the label racist because he fails to hit consistent arguments, and leaps around. One thread is about how stupid blacks are compared to whites, another is about how Norway is being 'raped' by Arabs.... the only common element is that all are racially connected in some way.

Logically, you would need a 'thin-end-of-the-wedge' argument... and I can't think of a better one than sickle-cell anemia. This shouldn't be muddied by an 'agenda'. It needs to be entirely scientific, and should never touch on other 'race' issues... like relative IQ's of different-coloured-skins.

The goal of such a position would be to set a certain 'focus' in the mind of the reader... a recognition that there is some 'magical divide' between at least SOME of the ethnic backgrounds. If you back such an argument with genetic profiles affecting the prevalence of sickle-cell, you create an effective 'wedge'. You don't even NEED to argue any further... you have people accepting the idea that people are different at some unalterable level.

In fact - that's where you need to stop - you can't allow people to CONTINUE down the line of reasoning, or they might start to ask difficult questions... like "So what? There are genetic tendencies towards and against certain diseases in other catchments also... it is not just a 'race' thing..." or maybe "And if we accept all are 'different'.... does that mean we MUST treat everyone differently on [b]that[b] basis"?

Racism, like any other prejudice, works best if you can achieve an unthinking acceptance - and if you can get people comfortable enough with the ideas that they don't stop to question whether they are at the END of a logical branch... or still working their way THROUGH it.

Racism, like any other prejudice, works best if you can achieve an unthinking acceptance - and if you can get people comfortable enough with the ideas that they don't stop to question whether they are at the END of a logical branch... or still working their way THROUGH it.

While it's not plausible to argue the idea of race as a genetic construct (IMHO), and therefore, not plausible to argue the idea of racial superiority, I do believe that in the future, with advances in genetic engineering, you will be able to argue the idea of genetic superiority.

That is, humans engineered to have few, if any, of the flaws that the standard model comes with, expressed or unexpressed.

While it's not plausible to argue the idea of race as a genetic construct (IMHO), and therefore, not plausible to argue the idea of racial superiority, I do believe that in the future, with advances in genetic engineering, you will be able to argue the idea of genetic superiority.

That is, humans engineered to have few, if any, of the flaws that the standard model comes with, expressed or unexpressed.

I don't know if 'science' will be 'allowed' to create such a situation, to be honest. Ethicists - both the religious, and the non-religious - have often argued reasons that might inhibit such thought... from the idea that "God made us that way for a reason", to the recollection of the historical dangers of eugenics.

If you haven't seen it, watch "Gattaca"... :)

I don't know if 'science' will be 'allowed' to create such a situation, to be honest. Ethicists - both the religious, and the non-religious - have often argued reasons that might inhibit such thought... from the idea that "God made us that way for a reason", to the recollection of the historical dangers of eugenics.

If you haven't seen it, watch "Gattaca"... :)
I've seen it.

The problem is, that some countries are more than willing to experiment in that direction. While some nations are balking at stem cell harvesting from embryos, or even cloning, other nations and groups wish to push ahead.

Once the ball starts rolling, you won't be able to stop it. People will pay through the nose for the genetic modification, out of fear that their children will be obsolescent.

I've seen it.

The problem is, that some countries are more than willing to experiment in that direction. While some nations are balking at stem cell harvesting from embryos, or even cloning, other nations and groups wish to push ahead.

Once the ball starts rolling, you won't be able to stop it. People will pay through the nose for the genetic modification, out of fear that their children will be obsolescent.

I think that is a worst-case scenario. Personally, I am in favour of all the 'required' sciences... stem-cell research, cloning research... even the attempts to cure 'genetic' disorders. I still find myself objecting to the tiered-population idea... as much on the basis of genetic profile as any other motif.

I like to imagine a world where the rampant commercial pressures of the 21st-century west have given way to a more relaxed scenario... where people have largely stepped beyong our animal-mind territoriality and tribalism, and where gene manipulation would be a power for good.... not another way of making wars, or increasing population divides.

I think that is a worst-case scenario. Personally, I am in favour of all the 'required' sciences... stem-cell research, cloning research... even the attempts to cure 'genetic' disorders. I still find myself objecting to the tiered-population idea... as much on the basis of genetic profile as any other motif.

I like to imagine a world where the rampant commercial pressures of the 21st-century west have given way to a more relaxed scenario... where people have largely stepped beyong our animal-mind territoriality and tribalism, and where gene manipulation would be a power for good.... not another way of making wars, or increasing population divides.

Let's say that getting your kid genetically perfected from your own starter genes costs 20,000 dollars, including the IVF service.

Some people will be able to afford that outright, some will be able to borrow (and will), and some won't be able to afford it no matter what.

I can't see it being held up as a natural right to have the genes of your progeny edited. So I can't see the government subsidizing it.

And I can see people like that, raised in certain environments, outperforming the average random Joe. Even if they become criminals as a result of a bad upbringing and a poor social existence, they'll be GREAT at it.

Let's say that getting your kid genetically perfected from your own starter genes costs 20,000 dollars, including the IVF service.

Some people will be able to afford that outright, some will be able to borrow (and will), and some won't be able to afford it no matter what.

I can't see it being held up as a natural right to have the genes of your progeny edited. So I can't see the government subsidizing it.

And I can see people like that, raised in certain environments, outperforming the average random Joe. Even if they become criminals as a result of a bad upbringing and a poor social existence, they'll be GREAT at it.

This is true... which is why my vision of utopia would be so different to so many others... capitalism breeds inequality... indeed, it feeds on it. As long as the concept of personal gain is institutionalised, genetic engineering will be abused. On the other hand, a truly equalitarian society would have a vested interest in making everyone 'better'.

This is true... which is why my vision of utopia would be so different to so many others... capitalism breeds inequality... indeed, it feeds on it. As long as the concept of personal gain is institutionalised, genetic engineering will be abused. On the other hand, a truly equalitarian society would have a vested interest in making everyone 'better'.

Personal gain is fundamental. Until you can figure out a way, right now, to make me "truly" care about "everyone" in the exact same way I care about myself, you're talking about a dream world.

Personal gain is fundamental. Until you can figure out a way, right now, to make me "truly" care about "everyone" in the exact same way I care about myself, you're talking about a dream world.

I disagree. I think 'personal gain' is conditioned, just like racism, sexism and all the other little negative aspects of tribal society we still indulge.

One doesn't have to care about everyone just as they do about themselves... but they do need to care about everyone. It has been a core message of most religions at various times... it's just not a popular one, because it is hard to do... to treat other people as you would LIKE to be treated.

How do I know it is not 'fundamental'? Because it holds no appeal to me... so it can't be universal. Even if I were unique (and I don't think that is the case), I would still be an exception to a rule... and thus, an evidence that the rule was not absolute.

I disagree. I think 'personal gain' is conditioned, just like racism, sexism and all the other little negative aspects of tribal society we still indulge.


Tribal society, on the contrary, is usually considered more egalitarian than settled society. Nomads have no concept of personal property. Tribes work as a unit. Tribalism is a bad example for greedy capitalism since a tribe is in effect an idealized community... not a global one, of course, but as tight and selfless as you would like.

One doesn't have to care about everyone just as they do about themselves... but they do need to care about everyone.

In a modern sense of the globalism, environmentalism, and survival against incredibly threatening things like asteroids, plagues and nuclear war? I agree.

But that idea is not incompatible with the idea of "me first." I have to come first, otherwise I can't do jack shit for others. And you'll find that kind of practicality all throughout nature. With exceptions for pair-bondings, and social groups in social animals.

It has been a core message of most religions at various times... it's just not a popular one, because it is hard to do... to treat other people as you would LIKE to be treated.

But again this is something different. I treat others like I'd like to be treated, that doesn't mean I share my lunch with 6 billion people.

How do I know it is not 'fundamental'? Because it holds no appeal to me...

But your lack of appeal could be conditioned. ;) When we're talking about ideas it's easy to say what appeals and what doesn't, it doesn't prove one way or the other about whether something is fundamental. Breastfeeding is fundamental for mammals, but I can't say that it appeals to me. (Bad example perhaps.)

I would still be an exception to a rule... and thus, an evidence that the rule was not absolute.

I'm not saying there is a "rule" per se. Just that selfishness is a fundamental thing. Consider biology. We have hundreds of millions of years of reptilian DNA, but less of mammalian, and even less of social primate. It just makes sense that the social, egalitarian nature of our primate brain is not as fundamental as everything it was built on.

Of course a caveat is what do we mean by 'personal gain.' There's a difference between intelligently grabbing what you need, some for later use as well, and in over-gaining, if you will. Or the difference between grabbing nuts to eat now, saving some for the winter ahead; and in wolfing down 3 pounds of meat at McDonald's.

Let's say that getting your kid genetically perfected from your own starter genes costs 20,000 dollars, including the IVF service.

Some people will be able to afford that outright, some will be able to borrow (and will), and some won't be able to afford it no matter what.

I can't see it being held up as a natural right to have the genes of your progeny edited. So I can't see the government subsidizing it.

And I can see people like that, raised in certain environments, outperforming the average random Joe. Even if they become criminals as a result of a bad upbringing and a poor social existence, they'll be GREAT at it.

$/€20.000 is substantially cheaper for the government to pay out. By making a few "improvements", IQ, health, etc... the government wins. Less chance on medical/psycological ilness, so cheaper on the medical industry, and as you said if they outperform, they'll be competitive advantage for the nation in regards to foreign investment.
I think governments in europe would do it.

Tribal society, on the contrary, is usually considered more egalitarian than settled society. Nomads have no concept of personal property. Tribes work as a unit. Tribalism is a bad example for greedy capitalism since a tribe is in effect an idealized community... not a global one, of course, but as tight and selfless as you would like.


Actually, I am pro-Tribalism. If you've ever read my communism/capitalism comments, I always end up reverting to modern tribalism, for just the reasons you suggest.

In this instance, I was talking more about an idea of the 'tribal' brain as being our more primative 'human' brain, though... using it as an 'epoch' in human history, rather than as an actual descriptor.


In a modern sense of the globalism, environmentalism, and survival against incredibly threatening things like asteroids, plagues and nuclear war? I agree.

But that idea is not incompatible with the idea of "me first." I have to come first, otherwise I can't do jack shit for others. And you'll find that kind of practicality all throughout nature. With exceptions for pair-bondings, and social groups in social animals.


I don't find that true. Wouldn't the Bible story of Jesus be a perfect example of someone NOT 'coming first' for the good of the world?

I'm not saying we don't need our survival instincts... but we aren't exactly tree-dwellers living on the brink of extinction... we HAVE no predators, except for ourselves. Our survival instincts need to be sublimated... survival for US, not for ME.


But again this is something different. I treat others like I'd like to be treated, that doesn't mean I share my lunch with 6 billion people.


But, if you had 5.999 billion spare servings of lunch? Or even - if you could lay hand to them?


But your lack of appeal could be conditioned. ;) When we're talking about ideas it's easy to say what appeals and what doesn't, it doesn't prove one way or the other about whether something is fundamental. Breastfeeding is fundamental for mammals, but I can't say that it appeals to me. (Bad example perhaps.)

I'm not saying there is a "rule" per se. Just that selfishness is a fundamental thing. Consider biology. We have hundreds of millions of years of reptilian DNA, but less of mammalian, and even less of social primate. It just makes sense that the social, egalitarian nature of our primate brain is not as fundamental as everything it was built on.


I'm not saying my general attitude to preservation of the species is/is not conditioned... but it must not be universal. It can't be entirely fundamental to the human condition, if it isn't common to the entire population.


On the other hand - if I am the product of conditioning (I wonder who conditioned me, then... the vast majority seems to be preaching 'fuck the world, I wants MINE, my precious') then I think a little conditioning must be a good thing - because, just maybe, we could finally have a world of equality and peace.

(This is where Lionel Hutz would *shudder*).


Of course a caveat is what do we mean by 'personal gain.' There's a difference between intelligently grabbing what you need, some for later use as well, and in over-gaining, if you will. Or the difference between grabbing nuts to eat now, saving some for the winter ahead; and in wolfing down 3 pounds of meat at McDonald's.

Who told you you could get 'meat' at McDonalds?

Well, I read the whole thing, and I think it was a pretty neat article.

Cookie please!

i think grave_n_idle smothered NN with'em.

Sorry no cookies left...

Actually, I am pro-Tribalism. If you've ever read my communism/capitalism comments, I always end up reverting to modern tribalism, for just the reasons you suggest.

In this instance, I was talking more about an idea of the 'tribal' brain as being our more primative 'human' brain, though... using it as an 'epoch' in human history, rather than as an actual descriptor.


Well, you shouldn't do that around me, I take tribalism to mean tribalism, not barbarianism as some do. :)

Though I'm not really pro-tribalist... there are just too many people for that lifestyle to work. Maybe if we spread to the stars, where the population density can go down. 1 person per parsec, that'd be pretty apt.


I don't find that true. Wouldn't the Bible story of Jesus be a perfect example of someone NOT 'coming first' for the good of the world?

Sure, if we assume it's true. Frankly, I fail to see what a crucified Jew does for the good of the world.

I'm not saying we don't need our survival instincts... but we aren't exactly tree-dwellers living on the brink of extinction... we HAVE no predators, except for ourselves. Our survival instincts need to be sublimated... survival for US, not for ME.

Even out of the trees. If I can't pay my bills, I can't very well pay my taxes either.

But, if you had 5.999 billion spare servings of lunch? Or even - if you could lay hand to them?

I think distribution would still be logistically impossible. But sure, I'm not in habit of eating 5.999 billion times as much food as I need, might as well do something with the unwanted bits other than putting it in the trash.

But I'd still have to get my meal in first.

I'm not saying my general attitude to preservation of the species is/is not conditioned... but it must not be universal. It can't be entirely fundamental to the human condition, if it isn't common to the entire population.

I still disagree. There's a diffeernce between the foundation and the visible...

On the other hand - if I am the product of conditioning (I wonder who conditioned me, then... the vast majority seems to be preaching 'fuck the world, I wants MINE, my precious') then I think a little conditioning must be a good thing - because, just maybe, we could finally have a world of equality and peace.

Difference of perception. Religions yell for charity, governments extort taxes, everyone wants me to consider The Greater Good and sacrifice my life, my time and my munny!

And I too am shuddering here cuz, conditioning in the name of equality lead to things like, well, the KGB and the invasion of Tibet. I mean Tibet is now more "equal" now, no more theocratic hiearchy... but is that good?

Who told you you could get 'meat' at McDonalds?

My belly. It's definitely meat, though I can't be sure of what kind of meat it is...

And I too am shuddering here cuz, conditioning in the name of equality lead to things like, well, the KGB and the invasion of Tibet. I mean Tibet is now more "equal" now, no more theocratic hiearchy... but is that good?


Norway, Denmark, sweden are more equal as well.....

Not like the Earth and all its organisms are gunna miss us anyway... :p

Well, you shouldn't do that around me, I take tribalism to mean tribalism, not barbarianism as some do. :)


I referred to tribal societies... our societies evolved from tribal societies. To me, triablism is not of necessity connected even vaguely to the idea of barbarism... but, if I say tribal, it gives you an idea where on OUR societal timeline I might be talking.


Though I'm not really pro-tribalist... there are just too many people for that lifestyle to work. Maybe if we spread to the stars, where the population density can go down. 1 person per parsec, that'd be pretty apt.


I am very much pro-tribal, as a functional group... and I disagree with the idea there are too many of us... a tribe can exist in a small space, next to any amount of other tribes. One doesn't have to immediately assume the ideas of plains Indians to accomodate tribal living.


Sure, if we assume it's true. Frankly, I fail to see what a crucified Jew does for the good of the world.


It's an example. As an Atheist, the story is just a curiousity to me... not a factual history. But, it is an example of how the exact opposite of 'me first' can be good for the greater number.


Even out of the trees. If I can't pay my bills, I can't very well pay my taxes either.


I don't see how that connects. If we were all honstly looking out for one another, you'd have help when you needed it, just as you'd offer help when your friends needed it... no?


I think distribution would still be logistically impossible. But sure, I'm not in habit of eating 5.999 billion times as much food as I need, might as well do something with the unwanted bits other than putting it in the trash.

But I'd still have to get my meal in first.


Why? Have you never shared a meal? Have you never had a friend that didn't have anything to eat, so you only ate half your meal, and gave the rest to him/her?


I still disagree. There's a diffeernce between the foundation and the visible...


Possible... but since we seem to disagree over which is which...


Difference of perception. Religions yell for charity, governments extort taxes, everyone wants me to consider The Greater Good and sacrifice my life, my time and my munny!


I always laugh when people talk about governments extorting taxes... after all, we allow the concept of government, collectively... and our government allows us to live within it's governance. Thus - whatever our government decides to 'charge us' is at our acceptance. We might complain if that is too large a percentage of our income... but then, we don't HAVE to live in this society, and take advantage of the benefits of it, now, do we?


And I too am shuddering here cuz, conditioning in the name of equality lead to things like, well, the KGB and the invasion of Tibet. I mean Tibet is now more "equal" now, no more theocratic hiearchy... but is that good?


The KGB had little to do with conditioning, and even less to do with 'equality'.


My belly. It's definitely meat, though I can't be sure of what kind of meat it is...

It's like meat. I wouldn't want to defend the assertion that it IS meat.

I am very much pro-tribal, as a functional group... and I disagree with the idea there are too many of us... a tribe can exist in a small space, next to any amount of other tribes. One doesn't have to immediately assume the ideas of plains Indians to accomodate tribal living.


Well, in that case you're an anarchist! You take the idea of local governance down to the community level (or something). But that just doesn't work, the big fish eat the small fish, and we're back where we started.

I think we're off topic from our tangent now.


It's an example. As an Atheist, the story is just a curiousity to me... not a factual history. But, it is an example of how the exact opposite of 'me first' can be good for the greater number.

True it is... but its not very incouraging with regards to reality.


I don't see how that connects. If we were all honstly looking out for one another, you'd have help when you needed it, just as you'd offer help when your friends needed it... no?

Taxes are supposedly the 'redistribution' that helps (in a quasi-socialist model anyway) "helping" other people when they need it. But of course if I don't make enough money for myself, then I am in a position where I can't help anyone else until I do again (whether by my own bootstraps or by sucking up offered help). First priority in both cases is myself.


Why? Have you never shared a meal? Have you never had a friend that didn't have anything to eat, so you only ate half your meal, and gave the rest to him/her?


I've shared a meal with a friend (this is different from the entire world since I am not friends with the entire world. Friendship, not charity, is the principle operating in this case). But again, not if I was starving to death. I'd help my needs first.


I always laugh when people talk about governments extorting taxes... after all, we allow the concept of government, collectively... and our government allows us to live within it's governance. Thus - whatever our government decides to 'charge us' is at our acceptance. We might complain if that is too large a percentage of our income... but then, we don't HAVE to live in this society, and take advantage of the benefits of it, now, do we?

Well, we really do. What are my alternatives? Go to Canada? They have even higher taxes. Europe? Same. Asia? Mostly the same. I could retire to some tax haven in the Carribean... and believe me, I will when I can. :) Trouble is, places with low taxes usually don't have much economic opportunities.

I disagree also that the government exists because of *my* consent. It would exist no matter what *I* did. It existed before and will outlast me. And if I don't pay my taxes, it imprisons me. Behind all government is the threat of force, see. We believe that we have democracy, but that's far from any "collective" will.

The KGB had little to do with conditioning, and even less to do with 'equality'.

Heresy! It was borne from a government that was "accepted" on the premises of collective will and equality. I can't separate it from that, as much as communist apologists would like me to. And KGB had everything to do with conditioning - people accepted it just the same way they "accept" all government actions. (Insert Herman Goering quote here.) If you don't accept, you are exiled from your community, or imprisoned, or killed. Negative response to reinforce cooperation.


It's like meat. I wouldn't want to defend the assertion that it IS meat.

Me neither. I just eat it. Ignorance is bliss!

And I too am shuddering here cuz, conditioning in the name of equality lead to things like, well, the KGB and the invasion of Tibet. I mean Tibet is now more "equal" now, no more theocratic hiearchy... but is that good?

Hate to be quibbler, but Tibet is still suffering under a quasi-theocratic hierachy. Chinese generally have many more rights tha actual Tibetans. Not officially, mind you, but it's pretty damn evident to see if you ever get the chance to go there.
Which I do recommend, btw.

Well, we really do. What are my alternatives? Go to Canada? They have even higher taxes. Europe? Same. Asia? Mostly the same. I could retire to some tax haven in the Carribean... and believe me, I will when I can. :) Trouble is, places with low taxes usually don't have much economic opportunities.
Well, you might have an alternative soon in the US itself. :)

http://www.freestateproject.org/*

If this goes well, I might reconsider moving to the US one day. Maybe we could also emulate something like it in Europe.

Are you a libertarian by the way? Your views seem to suggest so.

*Dunno what is up with the pirate fetish today. Anyway, give the site a good look, maybe when it's back to its normal mode.

Well, in that case you're an anarchist! You take the idea of local governance down to the community level (or something). But that just doesn't work, the big fish eat the small fish, and we're back where we started.

I think we're off topic from our tangent now.


I'm a complex political individual. I am equally dis-satisfied with a large number of our institutions. Am I an anarchist? No - but I see definite advantages in the idea, and think the model COULD be made to work. But - what I suggested to you doesn't equate automatically to anarchy - just to 'devolution'. The US is partly 'devolved' already... tribalism is just further devolution.


True it is... but its not very incouraging with regards to reality.


Not at all. Many of our historical epics centre around the idea of self-sacrifice for the greater good.


Taxes are supposedly the 'redistribution' that helps (in a quasi-socialist model anyway) "helping" other people when they need it. But of course if I don't make enough money for myself, then I am in a position where I can't help anyone else until I do again (whether by my own bootstraps or by sucking up offered help). First priority in both cases is myself.


No. Taxes are the means by which government carries out the tasks assigned to government. Chief among these, obviously, will be maintaining the security of the people so governed, both internal and external... but, ultimately, the government dictates what 'tasks' it needs to accomplish.

Of course - the idea is, that with democratic elections, we get to regulate our government, with regards to how much of our taxes they spend on what. It doesn't work well when you have a two-party system, but the US is too complacent and apathetic to change the model.


I've shared a meal with a friend (this is different from the entire world since I am not friends with the entire world. Friendship, not charity, is the principle operating in this case). But again, not if I was starving to death. I'd help my needs first.


If you would not share a meal with a friend when both of you were starving, then I'd be tempted to say you have never really had a friend.

As for 'not being friends with the entire world'... you might perceive that one way, I might perceive it another. To me - that is a failing.


Well, we really do. What are my alternatives? Go to Canada? They have even higher taxes. Europe? Same. Asia? Mostly the same. I could retire to some tax haven in the Carribean... and believe me, I will when I can. :) Trouble is, places with low taxes usually don't have much economic opportunities.


No - we really don't. You could go almost anywhere in the world. We have that 'power'. You just CHOOSE not to go to the war-torn, the poor, and the broken nations. Not that I blame you - I choose the same, for me and my family. But then, I'm not complaining about the taxe burden that means my nation is NOT one of those war-torn, poor and broken countries.

What you mean is - you want a certain standard of living, and you just aren't willing to pay for it.


I disagree also that the government exists because of *my* consent. It would exist no matter what *I* did. It existed before and will outlast me. And if I don't pay my taxes, it imprisons me. Behind all government is the threat of force, see. We believe that we have democracy, but that's far from any "collective" will.


Not at all. Government in 'democratic' states is entirely dependent on your consent, and mine, and every other person. Revolution, passive resistance, withdrawal of electoral support... there are a number of alternative routes to change what you perceive in government.

As I said before, people are too complacent and apathetic... and that is why we have the governments we have.


Heresy! It was borne from a government that was "accepted" on the premises of collective will and equality. I can't separate it from that, as much as communist apologists would like me to. And KGB had everything to do with conditioning - people accepted it just the same way they "accept" all government actions. (Insert Herman Goering quote here.) If you don't accept, you are exiled from your community, or imprisoned, or killed. Negative response to reinforce cooperation.


The KGB was borne of Stalin's paranoia. A 'secret police' is not an automatic factor of a communist state, any more than it is of a capitalist one... it deends entirely on the centralisation of power, and with whom that power rests.

Well, you might have an alternative soon in the US itself. :)

http://www.freestateproject.org/*

If this goes well, I might reconsider moving to the US one day. Maybe we could also emulate something like it in Europe.

Are you a libertarian by the way? Your views seem to suggest so.

*Dunno what is up with the pirate fetish today. Anyway, give the site a good look, maybe when it's back to its normal mode.

I'm not a registered member of any party. I guess you could say I'm mostly libertarian. Sure is a helluva lot closer than DemoRepublicrats.

But I don't hold out hope for such a project, due to aforementioned DemoRepublicrats and their stranglehold on power.

I'm a complex political individual. I am equally dis-satisfied with a large number of our institutions. Am I an anarchist? No - but I see definite advantages in the idea, and think the model COULD be made to work. But - what I suggested to you doesn't equate automatically to anarchy - just to 'devolution'. The US is partly 'devolved' already... tribalism is just further devolution.

How could one enforce anarchy?

Tribalism has always been considered anarchy by the governments of history.

Not at all. Many of our historical epics centre around the idea of self-sacrifice for the greater good.

But using Jesus as an example is flawed, since I don't think Jesus getting crucified did anyone any good. And what historical epics? I bet they are just as fictional, most of the time.

I'm not saying there is no such thing as sacrifice for a greater good. I'm just saying, I'm not the Son of God and I can't reasonably be expected to do so.

No. Taxes are the means by which government carries out the tasks assigned to government. Chief among these, obviously, will be maintaining the security of the people so governed, both internal and external... but, ultimately, the government dictates what 'tasks' it needs to accomplish.

Of course - the idea is, that with democratic elections, we get to regulate our government, with regards to how much of our taxes they spend on what. It doesn't work well when you have a two-party system, but the US is too complacent and apathetic to change the model.

It doesn't work well, period! It's always been flawed. Power corrupts, and government gets too much power via fiat. And since "redistribution" has been one of the "tasks" given to government - usually in the form of "services" - taxation is indeed the means by which that is supposedly accomplished. For the greater good. Etc.

If you would not share a meal with a friend when both of you were starving, then I'd be tempted to say you have never really had a friend.

As for 'not being friends with the entire world'... you might perceive that one way, I might perceive it another. To me - that is a failing.

Well, if we're both starving, getting half a meal may well just mean we both die. But I didn't say I wouldn't share a meal with a friend, just that friends are quite different from people I don't know, will never meet, and who don't care about me any more than I care about them. If you think everyone in the world is just as much your friend as your friend, then I say YOU have never really had a friend! :p

No - we really don't. You could go almost anywhere in the world. We have that 'power'. You just CHOOSE not to go to the war-torn, the poor, and the broken nations. Not that I blame you - I choose the same, for me and my family. But then, I'm not complaining about the taxe burden that means my nation is NOT one of those war-torn, poor and broken countries.

What you mean is - you want a certain standard of living, and you just aren't willing to pay for it.

Not at all. That assumes taxes pays for my standard of living. Generally, it doesn't. My taxes pay for killing people in Iraq.

Governments frequently take credit where none is due - for example, for the economy. That's why they tax when the going is good, and lower tax when it isn't - it's just a way to scam people most efficiently for taxes. More taxes, more power, and that is what it's about.

And while it's true I could theoretically go anywhere in the world, that does not really make it an alternative. It's like the alternative between getting a cure for a disease and dying - sure, theoretically that's a choice. But practically speaking, it isn't. And the government knows it. That's how they can get away with "charging" us for our "standard of living," wink wink.

Not at all. Government in 'democratic' states is entirely dependent on your consent, and mine, and every other person. Revolution, passive resistance, withdrawal of electoral support... there are a number of alternative routes to change what you perceive in government.

As I said before, people are too complacent and apathetic... and that is why we have the governments we have.

My consent AND every other person. Key there being every other person. Not mine. ANd yes, I know, "if everyone thought like you," but the sad fact is in a large, 'democratic' nation, an individual has really almost no power because he is a drop in a large ocean.

Theoretically there are alternative routes to change government, yes. But it has nothing to do with my consent - and everything to do with what non-government political entities (like a party, or rebellion) I submit my will to and what THAT does, not what *I* do.

The KGB was borne of Stalin's paranoia. A 'secret police' is not an automatic factor of a communist state, any more than it is of a capitalist one... it deends entirely on the centralisation of power, and with whom that power rests.

Communism entailed centralization which in turn lead to the rise of someone like Stalin, who of course the people gave "consent" to in much the same manner as we do in our 'democratic' society. I'm not saying it's exclusively a communist thing either, but communism has always lead to centralized, corrupt government, and hence I shudder.