> While some doctors didn’t trust anesthesia, Sims’s decision to not use it—or any other numbing technique—was based on his misguided belief that black people didn’t experience pain like white people did.
> These findings suggest that individuals with at least some medical training hold and may use false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites to inform medical judgments
I don't really understand this contention in the second link:
>Today, many laypeople, scientists, and scholars continue to believe that the black body is biologically and fundamentally different from the white body and that race is a fixed marker of group membership, rooted in biology (26⇓–28). //
Okay, I'd fit there.
I've never heard the concept of different pain tolerance (only across the sexes), but black and 'coloured' people are clearly morphological distinct in a way that suggests genetic differences ... are they saying light and darked skinned people are genetically and biologically identical?
That doesn't correspond at all with things like sickle-cell disease / malaria insensitivity which are reported to be found more in people with a long ancestry in sub-saharan Africa.
FWIW suffering from pain signals appears at least in part social and learned -- toddlers can often be tricked in to not finding something painful. I certainly don't feel the identical physical stimulus of nettle stings in the age way as my older children. The v toddler doesn't know it's supposed to hurt and carries on, the older child seems to be hurt with very little damage because they anticipate the pain. I feel the pain as I've always done (maybe my reception of pain stimulus is weakened?) but can easily ignore it because I know a few nettle stings isn't really anything to bother with.
Personally I'd expect almost everything to show some variation with "race", and also with geographical heritage, and also with societal tradition in groups you assosiate with. (Eg maybe diet affects pain perception and historical cultural background affects die, maybe?)
The idea that we're all identical is silly. I see where the desire to say that comes from: but ignoring reality doesn't get us further forward because it doesn't fit reality.
Don't morphological differences shared across a large population group indicate genetic/biological differences which are fundamental?
Like if you have ginger hair and freckles then you sunburn easily, it's a fundamental heritable difference [it doesn't of course mean you deserve lesser/greater rights or opportunities].
I think, and now biology is not at all my field, but I think the difference between human "races" is greater than just exterior colouring. See for example the Sickle-cell disease situation. That's maybe like horse breeds; this seems a good overview of health differences by breed, https://thehorse.com/111370/genetic-disorders-breed-by-breed....
Human races are certainly more than just skin colour, if your race can affect your healthcare requirements - which seems to me to be true - then it seems to me more fundamental than it is, let's say, superficial.
Fundamental differences aren't necessarily large; they're fundamental, I feel, because they're operative (the differences demand adjusted action in some way). Maybe blood-type is an analogue? It's not always relevant but I'd still a fundamental aspect that need consideration in health situations? (Though AFAIK it's a much stronger factor.)
> Thus, there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call “races” have distinct, unifying genetic identities.
> Ultimately, there is so much ambiguity between the races, and so much variation within them, that two people of European descent may be more genetically similar to an Asian person than they are to each other
> In the biological and social sciences, the consensus is clear: race is a social construct, not a biological attribute
>Today, many laypeople, scientists, and scholars continue to believe that the black body is biologically and fundamentally different from the white body and that race is a fixed marker of group membership, rooted in biology (26⇓–28). //
Okay, I'd fit there.
I've never heard the concept of different pain tolerance (only across the sexes), but black and 'coloured' people are clearly morphological distinct in a way that suggests genetic differences ... are they saying light and darked skinned people are genetically and biologically identical?
That doesn't correspond at all with things like sickle-cell disease / malaria insensitivity which are reported to be found more in people with a long ancestry in sub-saharan Africa.
FWIW suffering from pain signals appears at least in part social and learned -- toddlers can often be tricked in to not finding something painful. I certainly don't feel the identical physical stimulus of nettle stings in the age way as my older children. The v toddler doesn't know it's supposed to hurt and carries on, the older child seems to be hurt with very little damage because they anticipate the pain. I feel the pain as I've always done (maybe my reception of pain stimulus is weakened?) but can easily ignore it because I know a few nettle stings isn't really anything to bother with.
Personally I'd expect almost everything to show some variation with "race", and also with geographical heritage, and also with societal tradition in groups you assosiate with. (Eg maybe diet affects pain perception and historical cultural background affects die, maybe?)
The idea that we're all identical is silly. I see where the desire to say that comes from: but ignoring reality doesn't get us further forward because it doesn't fit reality.