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by andrewchambers 4032 days ago
I find asserting superiority of one race over another hard to justify, but is it crazy to think there are differences?

Dogs are the same species, but people do assign traits like aggression/playfulness to different breeds.
1 comments
cactusface 4032 days ago
There aren't "races" in the sense of Darwin's finches because there is interbreeding between population groups, that's all.
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tjradcliffe 4032 days ago
Redefining the word "race" so it does not apply to the human varieties does not make the fact of human varieties go away, and so fails to make a counter-argument against racists. "Racism" exists, and saying "race doesn't exist" doesn't change that. All it does is mean that to be consistent you'll have to call it "variety-ism", which is awkward and irrelevant.
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andrewchambers 4032 days ago
Racism is asserting superiority of one group of humans over another, and generalizing without evidence.

You could think certain people are genetically better adapted to cold or hot climates. That by itself is not racism, it becomes racism when you say that everyone who cannot stand cold weather is inferior, when in reality, it is totally dependent on circumstances.

I think people failing to see the difference stops some honest discussion and people go on a witch hunt. In this case, blocking the person may well be justified however.

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cactusface 4032 days ago
I'm repeating myself here, but per WP, "Scientific racism is [...] alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races."
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yarvin9 4032 days ago
It seems worth taking this criticism up with the authors of, for example, Risch et al 2005 [0].

From the abstract: "Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity."

It seems worth asking how a paper like this got published, as late as 2005. Scientific racism may be even more entrenched than many have feared...

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/

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cactusface 4032 days ago
What do you do with all the interracial children? Please forgive the oxymoron.
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gladius17 4028 days ago
Mr. Yarvin, is there some way to get ahold of you, via email or IRC? I'm not some hater who's pissed off about your political views or anything like that. This is very important. Thank you in advance,

Nathan Klein

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