What is race?

What is race?

Science

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I'm having a real hard time understanding where this word can be applied
to differing human physiological characteristics.

f
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Chesstralia

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
I'm having a real hard time understanding where this word can be applied
to differing human physiological characteristics.
Almost everyone has a hard time doing that.

Most prefer to pretend there is no such thing ... I think it makes life easier that way ...

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Originally posted by flexmore
Almost everyone has a hard time doing that.

Most prefer to pretend there is no such thing ... I think it makes life easier that way ...
hmm yes....I guess the very word implies that there should be some kind of winner.

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
I'm having a real hard time understanding where this word can be applied
to differing human physiological characteristics.
Speaking as a biologist, race is not a scientific term.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/1998-10/WUiS-GSRD-071098.php

Species, now... that we can work with...

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Originally posted by Retrovirus
Speaking as a biologist, race is not a scientific term.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/1998-10/WUiS-GSRD-071098.php

Species, now... that we can work with...
Ohhhh you see now that makes sense to me. Maybe you can help
me clear one more thing up and then I'll be on my way.

You see I work with computers and I'm still having trouble with this
analogy.

example 1

If I was to write a computer program I might set a variable to do x, y or z.
The outcome of the variable may tell the program to say turn sound on
or off, change the interface or even behave in an entirely different way.

example 2
I may require the program to act in a very similar way but have to
rewrite an entire block of code for a very modest change.

Now if I was to analyse the code between the two examples, I would
find that in the first example the percentage of similarity between the
codes would be 99% yet the external change could be upto 100%
The second example may have code similarity of 85% but the external
change would be 1%

Now to my understanding, we have only recently discovered that humans
are made of a code, very rececntly been able to read that code and
are still decades away from deciphering that code.

So my question is this.

How has this mr Alan R. Templeton been able to understand the
consequences of a 15% difference in code between groups of people?

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Thequ1ck


How has this mr Alan R. Templeton been able to understand the
consequences of a 15% difference in code between groups of people?
The difference between two humans are in no way even close to 15% !
I mean, the difference between a human and a chimpanzee is less then 1.5% .

What he wrote that from the already small differences between humans, only 15% can be related to "racial differences".

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Retrovirus
The difference between two humans are in no way even close to 15% !
I mean, the difference between a human and a chimpanzee is less then 1.5% .

What he wrote that from the already small differences between humans, only 15% can be related to "racial differences".
And that 15% would be a temporary thing considering all the cross-breeding of 'races'. If a blue black african marries a blue eyed blonde, the resultant skin color is something between the two so these characteristics are ephermial in the big picture. Race is in the mind of the beholder.

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Originally posted by Retrovirus
The difference between two humans are in no way even close to 15% !
I mean, the difference between a human and a chimpanzee is less then 1.5% .

What he wrote that from the already small differences between humans, only 15% can be related to "racial differences".
Is that all? Wow, so only tiny changes in genetic makeup are
required to produce considerable results?
Some might argue that dolphins are more akin to humans with their
cognitive abilities.
Do you have any statistics on the difference in DNA between humans
and dolphins?

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Originally posted by sonhouse
And that 15% would be a temporary thing considering all the cross-breeding of 'races'. If a blue black african marries a blue eyed blonde, the resultant skin color is something between the two so these characteristics are ephermial in the big picture. Race is in the mind of the beholder.
Interesting, so what word would you recommend using in place
of 'race' to describe differing characteristics amongst geographically isolated groups?

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Is that all? Wow, so only tiny changes in genetic makeup are
required to produce considerable results?
Some might argue that dolphins are more akin to humans with their
cognitive abilities.
Do you have any statistics on the difference in DNA between humans
and dolphins?
We haven't truly assessed the dolphin's cognitive capabilities.

Anyway, I don't now what's the genetic difference between us a dolphins, but if it's lower than the one between us and chimps, I'll dig up my old beret and eat it.

R

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Interesting, so what word would you recommend using in place
of 'race' to describe differing characteristics amongst geographically isolated groups?
Out of the top of my head:

Geography based allelic differences.



God, I suck at naming stuff.
😉

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Retrovirus
We haven't truly assessed the dolphin's cognitive capabilities.

Anyway, I don't now what's the genetic difference between us a dolphins, but if it's lower than the one between us and chimps, I'll dig up my old beret and eat it.
In terms of language receptive competencies, Herman and his associates have shown dolphins capable of:

* 1. successfully processing the semantic and syntactic features of a command system,
* 2. learning different syntactic rules,
* 3. understanding novel sentences,
* 4. object labeling,
* 5. reporting,
* 6. independence of sensory modalities in learning elaborate commands demonstrating linguistic comprehension.

http://www.whales.org.au/published/levasseur/levass2b.html

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Originally posted by Retrovirus
Out of the top of my head:

Geography based allelic differences.



God, I suck at naming stuff.
😉
Geography based allelic differences....catchy.

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18 May 08

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Geography based allelic differences....catchy.
We can call it GBAD ! (Pronounced "gee bad" of course)

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Originally posted by Retrovirus
We can call it GBAD ! (Pronounced "gee bad" of course)
Brilliant, I'll write the OED and get them to change it immediately!