Genetic Superiority: Explaining Equality in Material Processes

  • Thread starter Les Sleeth
  • Start date
In summary: People use them to try and justify their own viewpoints. Equality, superiority and inferiority...these are all subjective measures. People use them to try and justify their own viewpoints. In summary, this conversation is discussing whether or not humans are entirely a product of evolution, genetics, and conditioning. People are discussing whether or not races, genders, and other variations are contrary to some supposed principle of equality inherent in humanity. Some people argue that equality should be assumed because only material processes have brought us about. Others argue that equality is not an absolute measure, and that superiority is based on survivability. People also argue about whether or not races, genders, and other variations have genetic superiority. Overall, the conversation is discussing whether
  • #36
GlamGein said:
Let me repeat: there is no such thing as biological race.
Why can't we seem to grasp the FACT that biological race is false?

No matter how many times you repeat it, there are still many people, such as myself, who disagree with you.

I wonder how you define race such that you could possibly claim that biologically there is no such thing as race.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #37
"superiority" depends entirely on contexts. I am mentally superior to several of my friends (in an academic sense), and inferior to several others. Most of my friends have superior strength, or co-ordination, to me. But I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that race has anything to do with this -- Causasians seem about as able to me as Asians, for example.
The necessary skills and the variety of lifestyle choices available to humans make defining an absolute superiority beyond doubt, impossible. Though I welcome you to try.
 
  • #38
Prometheus said:
No matter how many times you repeat it, there are still many people, such as myself, who disagree with you.

I wonder how you define race such that you could possibly claim that biologically there is no such thing as race.

Actually, he is correct in the sense that genetecists can find no genes commonly shared in anyone race, yet excluded from the rest.

People have clearly evolved into different-appearing groups we call 'races', but two ramdomly-picked, unrelated Asians are not likely to have more genetic commonality than a randomly picked Asian and a randomly picked, unrelated Caucasian.

*There are NO genes for race*

And they have looked. Thoroughly.
 
  • #39
I don't think many of you understand the concept of race. "Race" is purely a social phenomenon. Biologically speaking, there are definitive human races. Skin color is one of MANY human variations, why is it THE variation that decides race? Biologically speaking, there is more variation found within certain "races" (87.5% of all human genetic variation can be found within a population), while only 15% of all human variations can be found between populations. Get the difference?

That is a red herring! Okay, "there is more variation found within certain "races"" may be true (even though those figures were based on BLOOD TYPE TESTING by Richard Lewontin in the 70s), but no single category can account for all the ways in which humans differ from one another. Try Replacing race with age. Most genetic variation can be found within age groups, not between them. Yep...but it doesn't mean age doesn't exist.

We differ enough to at least have some medical significance: http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001313.html"
So race is in fact biological. I too used to think it was merely a social construct, until I did some research in population genetics to try and back up my conclusions :biggrin:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #40
If you have two Gaussian distributions of the same trait with, say, the same variance, but with their means displaced one standard deviation apart, then you will find that the mean difference between individuals in either distribution is greater than one s.d. So what? Does that mean the distributions are not displaced? Does it mean that an individual who is one s.d high in the one distribution does not have the same level of the trait as an average individual from the other distribution? It is indeed a red herring.
 

Similar threads

  • Biology and Medical
Replies
2
Views
3K
Replies
10
Views
2K
  • General Discussion
Replies
8
Views
2K
Replies
18
Views
5K
  • General Discussion
Replies
25
Views
5K
Replies
64
Views
7K
  • Biology and Medical
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • Programming and Computer Science
Replies
1
Views
1K
Replies
23
Views
4K
  • General Discussion
Replies
2
Views
3K
Back
Top