Genetic Superiority: Explaining Equality in Material Processes

[wuliheron]

The real irony, FZ, is that these have been the findings of genetic research over the last few decades. When Chimp DNA was been compared to human it was discovered that whites are more closely related to chimps. Chimps have straight brown hair, no lips, white/pink skin, and sometimes blue eyes.

In addition, around half the human genome has been discovered to be junk held in reserve for the day the human race might need it. When fast adaptation is required we have a reserve of DNA that helps to make that possible. Such a flexible yet unimaginably complex system in a species who do not reproduce by the hundreds and thousands from a single female is difficult to manage.

 

[jammieg]

The environment is more important in shaping a person than their genes.
Perhaps the real question is, what is it about certain environments that have such a tendency to produce certain results in people? Who decides what genes would be superior and inferior?
And what are we supposed to do start handing out jobs based on genes over experience or more importantly the desire to do that job?
The belief in genetic superiority often arrises out of a lack of confidence.
The essential of racism is when a square peg believes it is better than a round peg. Who are we to play God and say some people are not worth as much as others.

 

[FZ+]

Originally posted by jammieg
The environment is more important in shaping a person than their genes.

Erm... take the genes of a goldfish and put it in a human environment. I don't think it would work very well.

I think you mean that the environment is more important in "differentiating a person" than their genes.

EDIT: as opposed to integrating, no doubt.

 

[wuliheron]

LOLOLOL... Bottom line, you can't have a person without an environment and vice versa. Thus, both are equally important. Instead of attempting to decide which one is more important in shaping a person the more important and personal question for us all is how to maximize both towards productive and humane purposes. Superior genes may be able to overcome inferior environments and vice versa, but these are all inferior scenarios.

Regardless of which is may or may not be more important, this is straying from the original topic.

 

[J1M]

Originally posted by wuliheron
I agree with this, but the question was about genetic superiority, not racism. As with the genes coding for sickle cell anemia, given the right environment that can be superior. In the modern world with various treatments for malaria sickle cells are a disadvantage, inferior genes.

If perchance civilization were destroyed, sickle cells would become an advantage once again. In some sense then, the shear variety of genes is superior.

This is wrong.

There are certain traits and thus genes that are inferior and will remain so forever. Example? Colorblindness. Personally, I see these genes as a throwback to when mankind was first evolving color vision but there are no environmental conditions you can possibly fantasize which would make colorblind members of society suddenly rise in power and breeding status.

This gene is just one example, there are plenty, plenty, more.

Recent research also seems to indicate that memories are stored in DNA just like instincts, so who knows a lot of this "junk DNA" may turn out to be jumbled memory storage from your ancestors. This is not important to this discussion except to say that much of this "extra" DNA could serve absolutely no useful function when put to the tests of evolution. One should not assume we all possesses latent usefulness in our genes.

As for the concept of race... nobody would deny that amongst any population there are those who are physically stronger and those who are smarter. In modern society we make up notions of "personality", "kindness", etc. and automatically grant additional quantities of these things to people lacking in the more obviously desirable traits to make things "equal".

If it is granted that there are those individuals who are better, faster, stronger, smarter, etc. why is it suddenly tabboo to try and trace the lineage of these people to a common ancestor? Stop. Think about that for a minute before continuing. Read it again if you have to.

Taking all factors as a whole into consideration it is easy to look at history and pick out different civilizations that were at their time superior (in every sense of the word, so don't bother trying to define it). For example Homo-Erectus, Egyptian Empire, Roman Empire, British Empire, etc.

Again, these are all givens and utterly clear to us looking at the past. The real central question is not "Are there superior races/civilizations/genes?", but rather:

When we identify these superior traits in the present will we pretend this knowledge is false or act on it to strengthen the species?

 

[Prometheus]

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.

 

[clouded.perception]

"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.

 

[clouded.perception]

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.

 

[phusicist]

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

 

[selfAdjoint]

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.