[throwaway6449]

It's pretty nice to see that Reich is literally hammering home that HBD as HBD proponents see it isn't real yet you think it furthers your argument. Three things:

1. That there are population (not race, these are not the same thing and only ever overlap by happenstance) differences in some critical traits for survival is old news. These traits are few and far between and have been the subject of extremely strong selective pressure. They're also subject to evolutionary convergence. For this reason they can't be a good proxy for classifying populations phylogenically, even though they do come up in medicine. Also, because of the very one-dimensional and extreme selective aspect of it, it is highly dubious that very complex traits (let alone undefined traits like "intelligence") could be involved.

2. That you lump up artificial selection for a single purpose and natural selection (which Darwin specifically coined as opposed to the artificial selection we do on animals) shows you have a very limited understanding of how, well, evolutionary genomics works. You can't treat selective breeding the same way you treat natural selection. You need to look up basic concepts before we have a reasonable discussion.

3. You keep thrashing Saini but you haven't addressed the fact that her books have received inputs and feedback from many prominent people in the field. I asusme you're not a specialist so surely your first reflex should be to assume the people she's thanked in the foreword know what they're doing as their daily job.

[xyzzyz]

> It's pretty nice to see that Reich is literally hammering home that HBD as HBD proponents see it isn't real yet you think it furthers your argument.

I have no idea what HBD is, but you keep repeating it, and ascribing a "proponent" label to me. Can I ask you to explain my position to me, so that I know better what I'm guilty of?

> 1. That there are population (not race, these are not the same thing and only ever overlap by happenstance) differences in some critical traits for survival is old news. These traits are few and far between and have been the subject of extremely strong selective pressure.

These things are simply not true, and Reich is pretty clear about it in his book. There are tons of papers about that too. You can keep repeating it, and Saini can keep repeating it, but it won't make it any more true. The papers won't just disappear. Common conception of race matches the ancestry extremely well. There are average differences found in many traits, many of which didn't see "extremely strong selective pressure". Reich brings up evidence for selection for taller height in northern Europeans in his book: what was "extremely strong selective pressure" there? Or, for that matter, what was the extremely strong selective pressure to select for short height in various Pygmy populations?

The above is bunch of falsehoods, and anyone who has any familiarity with recent (and not so recent) results in genetics and heritability is perfectly aware of that.

> 2. That you lump up artificial selection for a single purpose and natural selection

You're welcome to explain where I "lump" them, and what it actually means, because this is simply a contentless attack that's designed to deflect the attention from the core of the argument.

> (which Darwin specifically coined as opposed to the artificial selection we do on animals) shows you have a very limited understanding of how, well, evolutionary genomics works.

You can, and in fact, you do. Price equation simply doesn't care about what causes the generation-to-generation selection, for example. Again, this is a contentless attack on my imputed knowledge of the field.

> You keep thrashing Saini but you haven't addressed the fact that her books have received inputs and feedback from many prominent people in the field.

Of course I addressed that. For example, she received input from Reich, who trashes her argument. I also mentioned that some people in the field are also twisting science to further their political causes, and this has been true at least since Lewontin and Gould, and probably much earlier.

> I asusme you're not a specialist so surely your first reflex should be to assume the people she's thanked in the foreword know what they're doing as their daily job.

I don't trust Saini to accurately relay what she was told, because what she is saying is clearly against the understanding in the field, and as Reich's points out, many people in the field are in the business of obfuscating science themselves.

[thrawoway5773]

>Reich brings up evidence for selection for taller height in northern Europeans in his book: what was "extremely strong selective pressure" there? Or, for that matter, what was the extremely strong selective pressure to select for short height in various Pygmy populations?

Just because we couldn't isolate it doesn't mean it's not there (or wasn't there in the past). Also, Pygmies and Northern Europeans are very niche populations with little extant diversity compared to the rest of mankind.

>The above is bunch of falsehoods, and anyone who has any familiarity with recent (and not so recent) results in genetics and heritability is perfectly aware of that.

Idk what to tell you. It's literally my job to work in this kind of stuff. As in, I get paid for working in this, I clock in, have coffee with, have lunch with, clock out and sometimes binge drink with people who get paid for doing this as well. Feel free not to believe me but at this point it's just useless to fling "no you're the one who's wrong" one more time.

>Common conception of race matches the ancestry extremely well.

Common conception of race isn't well-defined and changes depending on culture and whatever the researcher had in mind when they wrote their paper, I'm not surprised it fits whatever they think it is.

>Price equation simply doesn't care about what causes the generation-to-generation selection, for example.

Models have evolved a little bit since the 19th century. In practice you don't model artificial selection the same way you do with natural selection, the latter is much messier.

>Of course I addressed that. For example, she received input from Reich, who trashes her argument. I also mentioned that some people in the field are also twisting science to further their political causes, and this has been true at least since Lewontin and Gould, and probably much earlier.

You conveniently ignored Birney and Coop's approval. Also the fact that you're bringing up Gould and Lewontin for no apparent reason, just to trash them, as well as the useless snark when pretending to not know, not even google the term HBD, leads me to think you just want to rehash the old wars of the 1990s and aren't in fact debating in good faith. So much for 'obsfuscating science' indeed.

[xyzzyz]

> Just because we couldn't isolate it doesn't mean it's not there (or wasn't there in the past).

As I said, the God-of-the-gaps argument.

> Also, Pygmies and Northern Europeans are very niche populations with little extant diversity compared to the rest of mankind.

How is this in any way relevant to what I said? I brought these two just as examples. I could bring you examples like these all day long, despite Saini confidently stating these don't exist.

> It's literally my job to work in this kind of stuff. As in, I get paid for working in this, I clock in, have coffee with, have lunch with, clock out and sometimes binge drink with people who get paid for doing this as well. Feel free not to believe me but at this point it's just useless to fling "no you're the one who's wrong" one more time.

I find it funny that you're claiming institutional authority from an anonymous throwaway account. That's not quite how authority works. You cannot just say that you have it, you need to credibly signal it in a non-falsifiable way.

> Common conception of race isn't well-defined and changes depending on culture and whatever the researcher had in mind when they wrote their paper

Same argument is true for dog breeds, and yet people have no difficulty distinguishing a chihuahua from a greyhound. Just like Saini, you keep saying things that are true, but irrelevant, hoping to deflect the attention from the core argument without having to actually address it.

> Models have evolved a little bit since the 19th century.

There were no real models of population genetics in 19th century to speak of. It was basically pioneered by Ronald Fisher in the 1920s. The Price equation I mention was published in 1970s. You'd have known that if you were the expert you claim you are, but as it turns out, you can't even be bothered to consult Wikipedia.

> Also the fact that you're bringing up Gould and Lewontin for no apparent reason, just to trash them

I'm bringing up Lewontin, because Saini brings up Lewontin. I'm also bringing up Gould, because the duo is a famous pair of agenda-pushers in this very field in the name of science.

> as well as the useless snark when pretending to not know, not even google the term HBD

I'm still waiting for you to explain the wrongthink I'm accused of.

> leads me to think you just want to rehash the old wars of the 1990s and aren't in fact debating in good faith.

It's Saini that wants that, of course. By the way, this is another contentless attack designed to deflect attention. I can't help but notice that in the whole thread, you haven't cited a single scientific finding, not a single one indeed. You just keep deflecting, attacking my perceived lack of credentials, while claiming institutional authority from an anonymous throwaway account, accusing me of some wrongthink you cannot even be bother to describe, asking me to consult google what I'm guilty of instead, and at the very end you have the gall of accusing me of not debating in good faith.