a spectrum of individuals who can’t be sorted in any meaningful way.
Really, just can’t be sorted? That’s a silly position.
the categorization at play is the product of cultural historical accident
That categorization is strongly correlated with your genes. Black people, for example, have strikingly different prevalence of certain diseases compared to white people. And East Asians have yet another prevalence. You think it’s just because of a “cultural historical accident”?
You seem to be hung up on the word “race”. Replace it with “gene pool”, see if it helps.
That seems a very straightforward example of the Fallacy of the Gray.
It isn’t. I am not saying “The existence of a spectrum makes it impossible to tell where someone is on the spectrum between white and black”. I am saying the notion of race is cultural rather than referring to anything like an innate property; I recall a documentary in which an American black man went to Africa to investigate farming techniques, and was made fun of for calling himself “black” when he was clearly white.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/o0/where_to_draw_the_boundary/
Really, just can’t be sorted? That’s a silly position.
I’ve given explicit reasons. try some.
That categorization is strongly correlated with your genes. Black people, for example, have strikingly different prevalence of certain diseases compared to white people. And East Asians have yet another prevalence. You think it’s just because of a “cultural historical accident”?
Some black people do. Other black people don’t. Where did this black person’s ancestors grow up in Africa? After all, there’s far greater genetic diversity among Africans than among, say, Europeans.
You seem to be hung up on the word “race”. Replace it with “gene pool”, see if it helps.
You’ll notice I refer several times to genetic clusters, which is a more accurate description than gene pool. But once you notice that there are multiple clusters for “black”, and also multiple clusters for “white”, and all of the clusters overlap, the idea of race starts dissolving. If you notice furthermore that clusters exist for other things—eye color, for example, or hair color, or jaw structure, or dental crown formations—the whole idea of classifying people by skin color becomes… well, ridiculous. The fact that I have an unusual crown formation says -far- more about my genes than my skin color, in point of fact, because there is only one island in the world where the particular formation originates—whereas there are dozens of genetic clusters which have roughly similar skin color.
I am saying the notion of race is cultural rather than referring to anything like an innate property;
That is a definitional argument—it’s all about how one would define the word “race”.
But once you notice that there are multiple clusters for “black”, and also multiple clusters for “white”, and all of the clusters overlap, the idea of race starts dissolving.
I don’t think so. You can look at genetic clusters at different levels of aggregation. At some level each person is unique. At another level a family is similar. One level higher inhabitants of a certain region are similar. Going up, just before the level of “all humans are similar” you encounter race.
the whole idea of classifying people by skin color becomes… well, ridiculous.
That’s why I’m suggesting classifying people not by their skin colour, but by the genetic pool / cluster their ancestors belonged to. Of course it’s an imprecise, statistical classification that talks mostly about population averages and priors. That classification, however, is correlated with skin colour.
Speaking generally, the usefulness of classifications is determined by their intended use. It all depends on what do you want to do with your classification, so unless you specify the point of the exercise, the whole thing kinda hangs in the air...
That is a definitional argument—it’s all about how one would define the word “race”.
Very much so, yes.
I don’t think so. You can look at genetic clusters at different levels of aggregation. At some level each person is unique. At another level a family is similar. One level higher inhabitants of a certain region are similar. Going up, just before the level of “all humans are similar” you encounter race.
I’d argue, as our culture defines race, you really encounter a large number of different and distinct ways of classifying groups of people, of which skin color is just one which gets disproportionate attention owing to historic cultural reasons combined with extreme visual salience (black skin is much easier to notice than eye color). In other periods of time, other ways of grouping people by race got more attention.
That’s why I’m suggesting classifying people not by their skin colour, but by the genetic pool / cluster their ancestors belonged to. Of course it’s an imprecise, statistical classification that talks mostly about population averages and priors. That classification, however, is correlated with skin colour.
The classification is correlated with a whole bunch of things, skin color being just one. You’re right to say we can update our priors on somebody having such-and-such ancestry—but we could do the same thing with any number of other characteristics which we almost entirely—but not quite entirely—ignore. Because we do see hints of that—blondes are ditzy, red-heads are angry, blue eyed people are less trusting of others (this is, as I understand, a German stereotype) - but we don’t elevate it to the level of -race-, and indeed treat it more like astrology.
[Edit]Because[/Edit] once you arrive at this point, you’re left with a foundation which completely fails to hold up the weighty edifice that is “race”
you really encounter a large number of different and distinct ways of classifying groups of people
Sure. But you’re implying a nirvana-fallacy argument: that classification by race is not perfect. Of course it is not. It is, indeed, one of many many different ways. The interesting question is whether this classification reflects (imperfectly) some underlying joint in the territory, or whether it’s an entirely arbitrary construct. It doesn’t look like an arbitrary construct to me.
the weighty edifice that is “race”
Haven’t noticed it being a particularly weighty edifice. A hot button, a battlefront, a trigger, a minefield, a mindkiller, etc. etc., but an edifice..? :-/
Sure. But you’re implying a nirvana-fallacy argument: that classification by race is not perfect. Of course it is not. It is, indeed, one of many many different ways. The interesting question is whether this classification reflects (imperfectly) some underlying joint in the territory, or whether it’s an entirely arbitrary construct. It doesn’t look like an arbitrary construct to me.
The use of skin color, as opposed to other criteria, is historical accident and entirely arbitrary. The importance placed on it, therefore, is entirely arbitrary. Does it look non-arbitrary? Well, I can only recommend you read the first book of The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson and consider how non-arbitrary the primary depicted culture thinks its sorting mechanism is. (Seriously, if you haven’t read it, read it. Bloody good, and does for racial attitudes what The Wheel of Time does for gender attitudes.)
As for whether it reflects an underlying joint? In our sterile, “This set of clusters, and that set of clusters, have something like a joint between them, even if the joint has a spot-weld right in the center” sense, yes. However, people who talk about race are never talking about genetic clusters, as a rule, they’re talking about skin color, and worse, the skin color of people in the middle of the damn spot weld.
Because we’re not comparing the Hutu and the Zulu and the Sara and the Ovimbundu to the Aegeans and the Sardinians and the Bulgars and the Romani and the Magyars. We’re comparing two groups of people in a country where every ethnic group that comes over gets dumped into a blender set on “chunky”.
Haven’t noticed it being a particularly weighty edifice. A hot button, a battlefront, a trigger, a minefield, a mindkiller, etc. etc., but an edifice..? :-/
Yes. Edifice. There is a huge volume of significance attached to something that doesn’t support it.
The use of skin color, as opposed to other criteria, is historical accident and entirely arbitrary.
Citation needed. I don’t think just a bland assertion will suffice :-)
We’re comparing two groups of people in a country where every ethnic group that comes over gets dumped into a blender set on “chunky”.
Maybe you are. I’m not. The world is bigger and more interesting than the United States. In particular, Americans are notorious for looking at the multicoloured world of races in a just-black-and-white way. I’m not arguing that the racial classification the US government uses makes any kind of sense :-/
I’d argue, as our culture defines race, you really encounter a large number of different and distinct ways of classifying groups of people, of which skin color is just one which gets disproportionate attention owing to historic cultural reasons combined with extreme visual salience (black skin is much easier to notice than eye color).
So how do you account for the fact that race as measured by what you consider the “flawed cultural way” correlates as strongly as it does with things like intelligence and criminality?
In other periods of time, other ways of grouping people by race got more attention.
And quite possibly they were dealing with different populations and the groupings they used did in fact correlate with important things.
That seems a very straightforward example of the Fallacy of the Gray.
Really, just can’t be sorted? That’s a silly position.
That categorization is strongly correlated with your genes. Black people, for example, have strikingly different prevalence of certain diseases compared to white people. And East Asians have yet another prevalence. You think it’s just because of a “cultural historical accident”?
You seem to be hung up on the word “race”. Replace it with “gene pool”, see if it helps.
It isn’t. I am not saying “The existence of a spectrum makes it impossible to tell where someone is on the spectrum between white and black”. I am saying the notion of race is cultural rather than referring to anything like an innate property; I recall a documentary in which an American black man went to Africa to investigate farming techniques, and was made fun of for calling himself “black” when he was clearly white. http://lesswrong.com/lw/o0/where_to_draw_the_boundary/
I’ve given explicit reasons. try some.
Some black people do. Other black people don’t. Where did this black person’s ancestors grow up in Africa? After all, there’s far greater genetic diversity among Africans than among, say, Europeans.
You’ll notice I refer several times to genetic clusters, which is a more accurate description than gene pool. But once you notice that there are multiple clusters for “black”, and also multiple clusters for “white”, and all of the clusters overlap, the idea of race starts dissolving. If you notice furthermore that clusters exist for other things—eye color, for example, or hair color, or jaw structure, or dental crown formations—the whole idea of classifying people by skin color becomes… well, ridiculous. The fact that I have an unusual crown formation says -far- more about my genes than my skin color, in point of fact, because there is only one island in the world where the particular formation originates—whereas there are dozens of genetic clusters which have roughly similar skin color.
That is a definitional argument—it’s all about how one would define the word “race”.
I don’t think so. You can look at genetic clusters at different levels of aggregation. At some level each person is unique. At another level a family is similar. One level higher inhabitants of a certain region are similar. Going up, just before the level of “all humans are similar” you encounter race.
That’s why I’m suggesting classifying people not by their skin colour, but by the genetic pool / cluster their ancestors belonged to. Of course it’s an imprecise, statistical classification that talks mostly about population averages and priors. That classification, however, is correlated with skin colour.
Speaking generally, the usefulness of classifications is determined by their intended use. It all depends on what do you want to do with your classification, so unless you specify the point of the exercise, the whole thing kinda hangs in the air...
Very much so, yes.
I’d argue, as our culture defines race, you really encounter a large number of different and distinct ways of classifying groups of people, of which skin color is just one which gets disproportionate attention owing to historic cultural reasons combined with extreme visual salience (black skin is much easier to notice than eye color). In other periods of time, other ways of grouping people by race got more attention.
The classification is correlated with a whole bunch of things, skin color being just one. You’re right to say we can update our priors on somebody having such-and-such ancestry—but we could do the same thing with any number of other characteristics which we almost entirely—but not quite entirely—ignore. Because we do see hints of that—blondes are ditzy, red-heads are angry, blue eyed people are less trusting of others (this is, as I understand, a German stereotype) - but we don’t elevate it to the level of -race-, and indeed treat it more like astrology.
[Edit]Because[/Edit] once you arrive at this point, you’re left with a foundation which completely fails to hold up the weighty edifice that is “race”
Sure. But you’re implying a nirvana-fallacy argument: that classification by race is not perfect. Of course it is not. It is, indeed, one of many many different ways. The interesting question is whether this classification reflects (imperfectly) some underlying joint in the territory, or whether it’s an entirely arbitrary construct. It doesn’t look like an arbitrary construct to me.
Haven’t noticed it being a particularly weighty edifice. A hot button, a battlefront, a trigger, a minefield, a mindkiller, etc. etc., but an edifice..? :-/
The use of skin color, as opposed to other criteria, is historical accident and entirely arbitrary. The importance placed on it, therefore, is entirely arbitrary. Does it look non-arbitrary? Well, I can only recommend you read the first book of The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson and consider how non-arbitrary the primary depicted culture thinks its sorting mechanism is. (Seriously, if you haven’t read it, read it. Bloody good, and does for racial attitudes what The Wheel of Time does for gender attitudes.)
As for whether it reflects an underlying joint? In our sterile, “This set of clusters, and that set of clusters, have something like a joint between them, even if the joint has a spot-weld right in the center” sense, yes. However, people who talk about race are never talking about genetic clusters, as a rule, they’re talking about skin color, and worse, the skin color of people in the middle of the damn spot weld.
Because we’re not comparing the Hutu and the Zulu and the Sara and the Ovimbundu to the Aegeans and the Sardinians and the Bulgars and the Romani and the Magyars. We’re comparing two groups of people in a country where every ethnic group that comes over gets dumped into a blender set on “chunky”.
Yes. Edifice. There is a huge volume of significance attached to something that doesn’t support it.
Citation needed. I don’t think just a bland assertion will suffice :-)
Maybe you are. I’m not. The world is bigger and more interesting than the United States. In particular, Americans are notorious for looking at the multicoloured world of races in a just-black-and-white way. I’m not arguing that the racial classification the US government uses makes any kind of sense :-/
You’re also overestimating the blender rpm.
Not quite. People usually call Colin Powell an African-American even though his skin isn’t that dark.
So how do you account for the fact that race as measured by what you consider the “flawed cultural way” correlates as strongly as it does with things like intelligence and criminality?
And quite possibly they were dealing with different populations and the groupings they used did in fact correlate with important things.