<!--QuoteBegin-Hauma Hamiddha+Jun 28 2007, 08:58 AM-->QUOTE(Hauma Hamiddha @ Jun 28 2007, 08:58 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...oining_tree.jpg
Husky would you say this neighbor joining tree using genetic distances has no meaning too?[right][snapback]70604[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->HH, the dgm you've linked to and my complaint were about two different things. Nevertheless here goes. Long response. My comment on the dgm itself is in the last half of this post, so maybe you'd want to skip straight down.
Never had a problem with genetics finding that some populations are more closely inter-related genetically than they are with other groups. It's simple sense. I naturally also accept the existence of ethnic groups. In this I am no different from the government of the country I live in. Not a single official form here will ask about anyone's "race", but there's a box for ethnicity (of which 'Indian' is one - Sri Lankans, Nepalese, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis have to tick the same box). Not a single school here teaches about 'race' in science classes. This is not the US. There's no one-drop rule here or questions about race.
<b>My point was merely that race was never a science</b> (regardless of how much the naturalists loved seizing up people's heads). One can see that even in how various general knowledge books could not constistently reproduce the same races: some have 5 (example in my previous post), some had only 4 and others 3 (M, N, C) where 'Australoid' went missing. No hard and fast rule: non-determinism, because at any point there can be 3 to 5 races depending on who you ask or which book you consult. Is that a science?
Going by how the naturalists/early anthropologists classified humans into races - this was before genetics of course - they did so on the flimsiest of criteria. Skin colour, skull dimensions, head shape, length of forehead, hair type, length of limbs. (Especially memorable is the 'round face = backward, un-European; Oval face = civilised, European'. According to that rule, the poor beautiful Charlize Theron is not European <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
And because this dealt with the classification of humans in a time when colonising other countries was an okay passtime, you can see human biases and subjectivity creep in. And where's the 'yellow' person? I know a significant number of E Asians and though I've seen porcelain-coloured, tanned and brown (like lighter N Indian) people among them, I've yet to see someone yellow.
The Bushman of Africa is African and even according to the lame criteria that naturalists used, they should at least have had the decency to let the Bushmen into the 'Negroid' racial category. But no. Bushmen are apparently a different brown than the African brown (a bit of a Tutsi dilemma there), and thus it didn't make sense to some European anthropologists that Bushmen - in spite of never having lived outside of Africa - should be grouped with their own country/continent members. The naturalist therefore felt compelled to create a new race for them altogether: Bushmen were 'Capoids', a race unto themselves, because the anthropologist could not see beyond his own preconceived notions and prejudices. The S African government in recent times has been discriminating against Bushmen, relocating them and silently causing their extinction because the Bushmen's 'brown' is not recognised as related to the rest of Africa's brown ('black'). Can you imagine? What in the world did the Bushmen do to deserve this? It's no fault of theirs. They may be their own subethnic group or even ethnic group, but are nevertheless linked to the others of their continent. The blame for their plight in post-apartheid Africa lies solely on the ideas of race instilled by colonisers, teaching that the Capoid (lighter brown Africans) was a race distinct from the rest of the African population.
I am not arguing here against the reality of genetic clustering and distances between them. As long as all relevant genes are considered, that's a science: it does not involve arbitrarily and inconsistently assigning people to groups based on subjective and variable things like the head shape or skin-colour, for instance. Genetics is a science and no one would have any problems with that (as long as its research is not driven or interpreted by racists, of course - this is an important distinction).
<b>As regards the diagram which you asked me to comment on</b>, I happily note that the Bushmen are not clustered as an island unto themselves. And finally N and S America's native Americans get their own group which is only common sense seen as how they've been genetically isolated - or nearly so - from the rest of us for such long periods.
Otherwise, I need to read through the research paper that goes with the diagram, I must know that it has been peer-reviewed before I accept it. This is for a number of reasons:
(1) The diagram mentions 'Eskimo'. Now what kind of scientist of our time would even contemplate writing that word? It's a racist term as most know. The correct term is Inuit (sp?). Definitely can't be an American or Canadian who made this diagram. Wackymedia standards is the only explanation.
(2) Ditto for 'Lapp'. Again, considered a racist term that scientists would not use (polite explanation link). The real term is Saami or Sami. Definitely can't be a European who made the diagram. And can't be a scientist of our time, not a published one at any rate.
I always accepted that qua phenotype Sa(a)mis in the 20th and 21st centuries are most easily placed with other Europeans. But the Swedes of the first half of the 20th century didn't agree, you see. For a long time they put lots of effort into proving that Sa(a)mis belonged to some supposedly 'inferior race'. Sometimes they were placed in the 'Mongoloid' category.
http://boreale.konto.itv.se/history.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->1913-1920: The Swedish race-segregation politic creates a system of institutional racism. The use of the Sami language is forbidden in the "Nomadicschools" A racebiological institute is created in Uppsala.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->See for instance also http://boreale.konto.itv.se/lies.htm, section <b>"Swedish racism" which has images</b> and the animated gif at http://boreale.konto.itv.se/webmstr.htm
In fact, Saami people being related to Finns, Siberians (there are Siberian Sa(a)mis) and Estonians are somewhat related to people near Mongolia, from which regions it's said they migrated north long ago. Even <i>if</i> in very early times they had ever looked a bit E Asian, most now look quite northern to me (bright blue eyes are common, and fair hair here and there) because of acclimatisation.
(3) The diagram makes mention of 'Caucasian' which was originally a racial group name; but 'Negroid', 'Mongoloid', 'Australoid' are replaced by 'African', 'E Asian', 'Oceanian' - suppose we can say that at least these last have lost the silly names given them. But why is one term used - Caucasian - an old racial term whilst the others are not? The others imply at least some geographical location, whereas Caucasia ... do they still have the Caucasus in mind?
(Just wondering about something else too: Middle-Eastern populations are missing. Am quite curious to know where they fit in.)
Also, I've yet to come across a scientist from this decade or late 1990s who mentions races in their science papers. But then of course, I've not read all the reliable genetics papers out there. Still, need to look at the corresponding journal paper itself and see for myself a paper talking about 'Caucasians' and the like before I can accept it is as emanating from some scientific quarter.
(4) It's a wackymedia item and as a general rule, I require supporting evidence for anything that's at the Wikia Foundation. Again, this just means I need the original journal article.
But in any case, the diagram does not show races but genetic clusters with tags attached. So it doesn't have any bearing on my gripe with racial categorisation other than the odd use of 'Caucasian' (which word, say what any one will, does in this instance derive from the race name 'Caucasoid' rather than imply the actual Caucasus).
Husky would you say this neighbor joining tree using genetic distances has no meaning too?[right][snapback]70604[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->HH, the dgm you've linked to and my complaint were about two different things. Nevertheless here goes. Long response. My comment on the dgm itself is in the last half of this post, so maybe you'd want to skip straight down.
Never had a problem with genetics finding that some populations are more closely inter-related genetically than they are with other groups. It's simple sense. I naturally also accept the existence of ethnic groups. In this I am no different from the government of the country I live in. Not a single official form here will ask about anyone's "race", but there's a box for ethnicity (of which 'Indian' is one - Sri Lankans, Nepalese, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis have to tick the same box). Not a single school here teaches about 'race' in science classes. This is not the US. There's no one-drop rule here or questions about race.
<b>My point was merely that race was never a science</b> (regardless of how much the naturalists loved seizing up people's heads). One can see that even in how various general knowledge books could not constistently reproduce the same races: some have 5 (example in my previous post), some had only 4 and others 3 (M, N, C) where 'Australoid' went missing. No hard and fast rule: non-determinism, because at any point there can be 3 to 5 races depending on who you ask or which book you consult. Is that a science?
Going by how the naturalists/early anthropologists classified humans into races - this was before genetics of course - they did so on the flimsiest of criteria. Skin colour, skull dimensions, head shape, length of forehead, hair type, length of limbs. (Especially memorable is the 'round face = backward, un-European; Oval face = civilised, European'. According to that rule, the poor beautiful Charlize Theron is not European <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
And because this dealt with the classification of humans in a time when colonising other countries was an okay passtime, you can see human biases and subjectivity creep in. And where's the 'yellow' person? I know a significant number of E Asians and though I've seen porcelain-coloured, tanned and brown (like lighter N Indian) people among them, I've yet to see someone yellow.
The Bushman of Africa is African and even according to the lame criteria that naturalists used, they should at least have had the decency to let the Bushmen into the 'Negroid' racial category. But no. Bushmen are apparently a different brown than the African brown (a bit of a Tutsi dilemma there), and thus it didn't make sense to some European anthropologists that Bushmen - in spite of never having lived outside of Africa - should be grouped with their own country/continent members. The naturalist therefore felt compelled to create a new race for them altogether: Bushmen were 'Capoids', a race unto themselves, because the anthropologist could not see beyond his own preconceived notions and prejudices. The S African government in recent times has been discriminating against Bushmen, relocating them and silently causing their extinction because the Bushmen's 'brown' is not recognised as related to the rest of Africa's brown ('black'). Can you imagine? What in the world did the Bushmen do to deserve this? It's no fault of theirs. They may be their own subethnic group or even ethnic group, but are nevertheless linked to the others of their continent. The blame for their plight in post-apartheid Africa lies solely on the ideas of race instilled by colonisers, teaching that the Capoid (lighter brown Africans) was a race distinct from the rest of the African population.
I am not arguing here against the reality of genetic clustering and distances between them. As long as all relevant genes are considered, that's a science: it does not involve arbitrarily and inconsistently assigning people to groups based on subjective and variable things like the head shape or skin-colour, for instance. Genetics is a science and no one would have any problems with that (as long as its research is not driven or interpreted by racists, of course - this is an important distinction).
<b>As regards the diagram which you asked me to comment on</b>, I happily note that the Bushmen are not clustered as an island unto themselves. And finally N and S America's native Americans get their own group which is only common sense seen as how they've been genetically isolated - or nearly so - from the rest of us for such long periods.
Otherwise, I need to read through the research paper that goes with the diagram, I must know that it has been peer-reviewed before I accept it. This is for a number of reasons:
(1) The diagram mentions 'Eskimo'. Now what kind of scientist of our time would even contemplate writing that word? It's a racist term as most know. The correct term is Inuit (sp?). Definitely can't be an American or Canadian who made this diagram. Wackymedia standards is the only explanation.
(2) Ditto for 'Lapp'. Again, considered a racist term that scientists would not use (polite explanation link). The real term is Saami or Sami. Definitely can't be a European who made the diagram. And can't be a scientist of our time, not a published one at any rate.
I always accepted that qua phenotype Sa(a)mis in the 20th and 21st centuries are most easily placed with other Europeans. But the Swedes of the first half of the 20th century didn't agree, you see. For a long time they put lots of effort into proving that Sa(a)mis belonged to some supposedly 'inferior race'. Sometimes they were placed in the 'Mongoloid' category.
http://boreale.konto.itv.se/history.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->1913-1920: The Swedish race-segregation politic creates a system of institutional racism. The use of the Sami language is forbidden in the "Nomadicschools" A racebiological institute is created in Uppsala.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->See for instance also http://boreale.konto.itv.se/lies.htm, section <b>"Swedish racism" which has images</b> and the animated gif at http://boreale.konto.itv.se/webmstr.htm
In fact, Saami people being related to Finns, Siberians (there are Siberian Sa(a)mis) and Estonians are somewhat related to people near Mongolia, from which regions it's said they migrated north long ago. Even <i>if</i> in very early times they had ever looked a bit E Asian, most now look quite northern to me (bright blue eyes are common, and fair hair here and there) because of acclimatisation.
(3) The diagram makes mention of 'Caucasian' which was originally a racial group name; but 'Negroid', 'Mongoloid', 'Australoid' are replaced by 'African', 'E Asian', 'Oceanian' - suppose we can say that at least these last have lost the silly names given them. But why is one term used - Caucasian - an old racial term whilst the others are not? The others imply at least some geographical location, whereas Caucasia ... do they still have the Caucasus in mind?
(Just wondering about something else too: Middle-Eastern populations are missing. Am quite curious to know where they fit in.)
Also, I've yet to come across a scientist from this decade or late 1990s who mentions races in their science papers. But then of course, I've not read all the reliable genetics papers out there. Still, need to look at the corresponding journal paper itself and see for myself a paper talking about 'Caucasians' and the like before I can accept it is as emanating from some scientific quarter.
(4) It's a wackymedia item and as a general rule, I require supporting evidence for anything that's at the Wikia Foundation. Again, this just means I need the original journal article.
But in any case, the diagram does not show races but genetic clusters with tags attached. So it doesn't have any bearing on my gripe with racial categorisation other than the odd use of 'Caucasian' (which word, say what any one will, does in this instance derive from the race name 'Caucasoid' rather than imply the actual Caucasus).