Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 28

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Just "Some"?!

The intro claims:

Some argue that the taxonomic concept of race, although valid in regards to other species, does not (currently) apply to humans.[5]

"Some" only? I thought that it was pretty much more like "the vast majority"? ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 08:47, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. I believe at one time the introduction said just what you say, and someone changed it. Feel free to correct. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Most people (in the US at least) use the "concept of race" every day. Consider: Obama is the first black president. David.Kane (talk) 16:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Non-sequitor. What do you disagree with? We are not talking about "concept of race." Who mentioned "concept of race?" We are talking about "the taxanomic concept of race" which is something different. The taxanomic concept of race is a biological system of classification. The question here is really about what biologists think. Virtually no biologist considers human races to be taxa. Of course there are other concepts of race besides the taxanomic. I think very few Americans consider White and Black to be taxanomic races; if they did they would call Obama a half-breed and perhaps even suggest that he would be infertile, like mules. When Obama, the child of a White woman, is called Black in the US people are definitely using a concept of race, they just are not using a taxanomic concept of race. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"concept of race" is a direct quote from the article. I now see that it is proceeded by the adjective "taxanomic" but a) I don't know what that adjective changes about the meaning (nor do I think other readers will know) and b) the article uses "concepts of race" just two sentences prior to this use. I suspect that almost all readers will, like me, assume that the meaning of "concept[s] of race" is identical in both paragraphs. Anyway, if someone could clarify what is meant here, we could probably come to an agreement about whether "some" or "the vast majority" is appropriate. David.Kane (talk) 12:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm. So if a movie critic, let's say Roger Ebert, wrote a review of a film for a newspaper and wrote, "Ads say that this is the best best movie of the year." you would argue that "Roger Ebert said this is the best movie of the year is accurate because it is a direct quote from Ebert's review? Is this realy how you read and interpret what people way?

In fact, it is the worst movie of the year."But to answer your question, yes, anyone who understands English grammar and who has read the article can easily explain this to you. "Concept of race" refers to any concept of race, just like "football club" refers to any footballclub. "Taxanomic concept of race" refers to a specific concept of race, just like "Everton Football Club" refers to a specific football club. This is how modifiers work in English grammar, if you are not very clear on English gramar. For those who do not know what the taxanomic concept of race is, there is a link to "taxanomic" that takes the reader to the article on taxonomy, or the reader can continue reading the article and will see that it provides an account of several different concepts of race, taxanomic being one of them. Isn't that cool, how encyclopedias first introduce a topic, and then go on to explain it? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Please adhere to Wikipedia standards: WP:AGF and WP:EQ. The footnote to this sentence does not establish what "most scientists" believe. With further discussion, I am sure that we can reach consensus here before changing the article. David.Kane (talk) 18:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

AGF and EQ are not an issue here. What is an issue here is your knowledge of current research in biology. What do you have to contribute to this article? If you know nothing but your own opinion, I suggest you work on an article where you can make an encyclopedic contribution. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you in a position to judge my "knowledge of current research in biolog?" In any event, the footnoted article provides zero evidence about what most or a vast majority of scientists think. So, unless you have a reliable source for the claim, it needs to go. Claiming "some" is perfectly appropriate because the authors of that article, at least, believe it. David.Kane (talk) 20:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

David, you are making a fallacious argument, your argument only works if you are arguing for the "concept of race", but that is not in question, the question is taxonomy, so you need to re-state your argument in terms of taxonomy. Are you going to say that "Most people (in the US at least) use and understand the 'taxonomic concept of race' every day"? You need a pretty stellar source to make that fly. As SLR points out the "taxonomic concept of race" is different to the "concept of race". Taxonomy is biological classification. Mostly in taxonomy "race" is used as a synonym for subspecies, but even in taxonomic circles there is no well defined and agreed upon definition for what constitutes a subspecies. Taxonomists are split as to the utility of any subspecific classification. Further, in biology there is not consistent usage of the term "race". In general it is used for subspecies, but it can vary by discipline.

1. We need to bear in mind that this is the introduction, so in general it should reflect what the body of the article states about taxonomy and subsepcific classification.
2. We can't say "Some argue", these are weasel words. We need to say who argues and why.
3. What is your argument? You say that "the footnoted article provides zero evidence about what most or a vast majority of scientists think", but surely you have some responsibility to show which scientists do support subspecific human classification? Or do you believe that the burden of proof only applies to those who you disagree with?
4. What does the article in question actually say? Let's take a look.

• Most importantly the introduction explicitly states that biologists disagree about the meaning of "race" and whether it is "applicable to intra-specific variation"
• The article acknowledges that the term is used loosely in the non-scientific world "The term is often used colloquially to refer to a range of human groupings. Religious, cultural, social, national, ethnic, linguistic, genetic, geographical and anatomical groups have been and sometimes still are called 'races'"
• The article goes on to argue that this disagreement about the meaning of "race" in taxonomy can be resolved if we accept that in taxonomy "race" is a synonym for "subspecies". "'Race' is applied in formal taxonomy to variation below the species level. In traditional approaches, substantively morphologically distinct populations or collections of populations occupying a section of a species range are called subspecies and given a three-part Latin name". N.B all humans are classified with the same tri-partite name Homo sapiens sapiens.
• Then we get to the crux of the argument "In current systematic practice, the designation 'subspecies' is used to indicate an objective degree of microevolutionary divergence. Do any of the human groups called 'races', including those from traditional anthropology, meet this latter criterion?"
• There is a discussion of why subspecific classification has been, in general, unsatisfactory. "Subspecies were primarily delimited by differences in selected observable morphological traits within a restricted geographical range. In practice, divisions were made based on a few prominent traits, with subsequent variation interpreted in terms of established units. In the 1950s many zoological taxonomists became dissatisfied with the subspecies as a way to understand variation"
• Then a discussion about current methods of classification "Molecular systematics makes it possible to explore infraspecific variation to detect patterns that would reflect phylogenetic substructuring. Avise and Ball suggest a definition of 'subspecies' that is consistent with the goals of evolutionary taxonomy11: 'Subspecies are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding populations phylogenetically distinguishable from, but reproductively compatible with, other such groups. Importantly the evidence for phylogenetic distinction must normally come from the concordant distributions of multiple, independent, genetically based traits.'"
• So now we have a definition, and the article states "This definition is different from the previous one in that it emphasizes phylogenetics. It is, in theory, more objective and consistent with neodarwinian evolutionary theory and can be used as the basis for determining whether or not modern Homo sapiens can be structured into populations divergent enough to be called 'races'. We know that there is human geographical variation, but does this infraspecific diversity reach a threshold that merits the designation 'subspecies', as is true with chimpanzees"
• There is then a discussion of human genetic variation. The discussion states that human variation is not well partitioned into groups, and that this means that individuals from different continental groups can be, and often are, more genetically similar to each other than they are to individuals from their own continent. Though this is not a "sufficient" argument, it is convincing because it shows a lack of boundaries between continental groups, something we should expect from phylogenetic partitioning, this demonstrates a lack of phylogenetic partitioning and isolation (i.e. high gene flow and recent TMRCA)
• "The nonexistence of 'races' or subspecies in modern humans does not preclude substantial genetic variation that may be localized to regions or populations." That's because "race" needs to take into account how the variation is distributed, and not simply the extent of the variation.

The argument boils down to how one defines "race". Biologists are scientists, they consider that we need a definition that is universal and consistent. In biology and taxonomy it is mainly the case that "race" is a synonym for subspecies. Modern taxonomy demands phylogenetic partitioning before it accepts subspecific status for a population. Humans display none of this phylogenetic partitioning, what variation there is is non-concordant (as any anthropologist knows).

There is no disagreement about the extent of human genetic diversity, there is some disagreement about the distribution of diversity, but this disagreement is, as usual in science, resolving itself. Basically the disagreement is about how "clustered" human groups are genetically, versus how "clinal" change is between extremes. Although this has not been resolved, good arguments exist on both sides. The question is then, can we call the clusters "races". From a phylogeographic, and therefore biological point of view no we can't call them "races" (which is what this paper says, and there are plenty of papers that give this point of view cited in this article and in the articles Race and genetics and Human genetic variation). But if we mean something different by "race", something less well defined, like a "cluster", then maybe we can.

There is a element of biomedical researchers who think that we can call these clusters "races", e.g. see Neil Risch, there are others who think that these "clusters" might be biomedically important, but would not consider them "races", e.g. see Noah Rosenberg, A. W. F. Edwards. Yet others think that these clusters are statistical artifacts that derive from faulty sampling practices, e.g. see the molecular anthropologist Jonathan Marks and the sociologist Troy Duster. Further there is some work that shows that even though clustering analyses are good at predicting the geographic origin of a person's ancestors, clustering analyses are not measuring phylogenetic partitioning, as Witherspoon shows there is no contradiction between two individuals from different continental groups being more genetically similar to each other and both being classified correctly into different continental groups. It seems counter intuitive to us, but it's true all the same.

We need to remove the word "some", whatever else we do. I'd suggest that we use the wording:

The term race is often used in taxonomy as a synonym for subsepecies, in this case human races are said not to exist, as taxonomically all humans are classified as the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens.

I think the article supports this wording.

Alun (talk) 07:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Alun. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 14:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The current wording is too technical, I believe that "clinal gradation" is a crucial term that cannot be substituted for anything else and instead must be explained, but "phenotypic and genotypic" might be unnecessarily precise and could maybe be substituted for some vague about "inherited traits". If "taxonomy" is explained on-the-fly it would perhaps improve the readability somewhat. And as Dave points out above, the wording "race" has had a wide usage in human classification of humans for political purposes, such as Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa. Now the intro is mostly about biology – if it be possible, a short but more precise description of former political usages of "race" would maybe balance the intro between the (former) political usage and the taxonomical invalidity. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 15:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

These sound reasonable to me, as long as clear links were maintained. Why not go and make these changes, Rursus? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look and see how it should be done in order to reflect the various usages of "race". The topic is complicated when we're dealing with various dissimilar definitions and concepts that are not founded in reality. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 16:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Rursus I'm not sure I agree when you say "the wording 'race' has had a wide usage in human classification of humans for political purposes, such as Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa". I think the Nazis and the South Africans and the United States of America were all claiming that their classifications were natural biological entities. There may have been different understandings as to the degree of divergence, there may have been different classificatory systems (e.g. see the US nomenclature with Caucasians including people of Jewish origin; versus the Nazi obsession with the "races" within Europe, Alpine, Nordic etc; versus the South African classification of "coloured", which included people of African, European and Indian subcontinental ancestry). It's the non-concordance of genes (genetic classification) and traits (biological anthropology) that produced such divergent classification systems for humans. Basically the more traits/genes one measures, the more groups one has to invent in order to classify, the less traits/genes one uses, the more diverse the "races" have to be (if one uses skin colour for example, then one might say that indigenous Australians, southern Indians and Africans are all in the same "race"). But the fallacy is that it's possible to produce any sensible subspecific classification for humans based on the distribution of genes/traits. The Nazis, the USA and Apartheid South Africa all thought that they were describing real biological divisions of humanity. But ultimately their "classifications" are social constructs because they are dependent upon using those traits (cultural as well as physical and genetic) that a specific society holds important, and therefore produce arbitrary systems of classification. Maybe we need to expand upon this in the introduction. The pace to start is the article, we should be giving a precis of the article in the introduction. We certainly shouldn't be introducing ideas into the introduction that are not already covered in the article. It's a matter of emphasis in the introduction I guess. Alun (talk) 07:16, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, just that. "Race" (among humans) is among the most illogical concepts used by humans. (I can also pinpoint a few ideological gravely flawed concepts in one right-wing ideology and another left-wing, but those are merely full clauses, not single nouns). Essentially the word "race" (among humans) is debunked as invalid. The usage of the word "race" and some various consequences of using it, is however interesting, and essentially the results use to speak for themselves.

One of the main problems with "race" (among humans) is that it mixes-up genetics with culture, in my estimate Barack Obama is "white", not "black", but it would provoke a lot of people in USA who identify with him because of skin color. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 08:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Now, we have discussed the construct of the word "race" too much, and the article contents too little. The thing that I criticised was the intro, not exactly reflecting the current content of the article. The rest of the article IMHO has a desirable structure and relevant content, but it is still too big (137 kb), about 3 times a recommended readability size (Wikipedia:Article size#Readability issues). The usual procedure of pushing out texts to specialised articles seems to already have been started, for example the long and technical section Race as subspecies links to a number of main articles, most specifically a very stubby and essentially empty Race (biology), where all technicalities within the section Race as subspecies would preferrably be. The content in this, the most important of sections itself, would preferrably be rewritten to be more "laymannish" so that the current biological finding becomes clearer to more readers. But that is just an example on how to trim the article to higher readability levels. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 09:03, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Rursus, Wikipedia is not paper, and there is no natural limit to articles. Limits are just guidelines. I think it is easonable that articles on more complex and controversial topics will be longer than other articles; the article on "race" will be longer than the article on "igneous rocks" for example. Our articles are organized with clear section headers so people can skip stuff they are not interested in. But given the wide range of misunderstandings about race, I think there is a lot of value to one article that explores the different facets in detail. Obviously I am all for trimming fat, or redundancies. But most people simply cannot understand points most scientists take for granted unless they read aout the research by both population geneticists and sociologists. I see a lot of value in putting this material in the same article. To separate it is to confirm a widespread misbelief, that sociologists and biologists do not agree with one another or have mutually reenforcing views. And I really hesitate to use summary style, because people new to the topic just will not understand a summary of complex research. It needs to be spelled out clearly, however many words that takes. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:14, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it is reasonable that articles on more complex and controversial topics will be longer than other articles;

I think the length of the article has no relation to the controversialness of the topic. The article will simply be more readable if sections such as Marketing of race: genetic lineages as social lineages are concluded, and the content is moved to articles in their own right. The contents "outlines" and conclusions of those subsections must not be moved away from here, they just need some editorial work to become clearer and thus available to everyone. The current article is just somewhat bloated and babblative. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 10:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I am ALL for making text less bloated and blabblative. I wrote much of the section to which you refer. My ego does not prevent me from approving of cuts, but it does make it hard for me to have the detachment required to know what to cut. If you want to try editing it, I agree you would be improving the article. But do know one thing: more Wikipedians than you may think are REALLY into sending away their DNA in return for discovering their "lineage," and they believe this proves the biological existence of race. Just as an example, look at the article Jew which uses this kind of research to "prove" the existence of a continuous Jewish race/ethnic group/nation since Biblical times. I am NOT arguing against your editing this section for clarity, just emphasizing that this issue is something many people think they understand and care about, but in many ways misunderstand. Wikipedia should have a number of good encyclopedia articles in this and related issues. The "talk" on this section is long archived, but there was a period - weeks if not months - where there was a heated debate here about including mtDNY and y-haplotype information as proof of biological races. A lot of people out there believe this stuff proves race so it needs clear coverage here. If you can make it clearer, I for one would be grateful. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Change to Race and intelligence section

I've moved some info from Race and intelligence per requests at the mediation for that article that someone get bold and do something. The proposal on the table is to avoid the perennial question of the scope of such an ambiguously titled article by moving the information to various articles and making R&I a disambiguation page. Feel free to move information around and to other articles, but please keep the information and links intact as much as is needed to remain encyclopedic. T34CH (talk) 00:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Where on earth do Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewinton say that discussions of differences in IQ are meaningkless? Page numbers, please! Slrubenstein | Talk 10:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

You'll have to talk to the person who wrote that. That language existed here before my edits. Obviously work remains to be done. T34CH (talk) 19:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

David Kane points out that this article is very large, and claims that the info I added should have it's own article. I wonder if, as long as we're excising information for a spin-off article, it wouldn't make more sense to evaluate the article as a whole and ask what can stand on it's own the best while not leaving holes here. Simply removing one of the debates from the article seems arbitrary to me. I can see perhaps removing all the debates to an article. What do regular editors think? T34CH (talk) 20:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not think this article needs any summary of the race and intelligence article. I think it should include a link to the article on heritability of IQ and perhaps also a see also to Race and IQ. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:23, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Race and IQ redirects to Race and intelligence... I'm not sure what you're proposing as I turned R&I into a DAB page as you suggested and we had discussed on the mediation page. Please have a go at moving material around. T34CH (talk) 22:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

My misunderstanding, I will give it some thought. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep the last ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 21:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done I've also moved the old archives so they are accessible again.--Oneiros (talk) 20:45, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

"Human races do not exist except as a purely social construct"

I find it curious how ardently and repetitively a blanket statement such as this is promoted in both this article and the associated talk page, while the intro of the same article cites Gill to the effect that this view is far from universally shared in the scientific community – and as the numbers given below indicate, not even by an overwhelming majority of researchers (to put it mildly) nor even all textbooks. Further down, however, Gill or anything resembling his view is never cited again, not even in the final, tiny section on forensic anthropology, where only Sauer, who does not believe in the reality of human races, is cited. Instead of quoting a well-familiar French phrase, I will state quite bluntly that this state of affairs really gives the impression that this particular POV is being pushed by a group of editors here, and that those would love to delete the – in their eyes embarrassingly misguided – opinion of Gill entirely out of the article or at least move it to a less conspicuous place, but are prevented from it by WP policy.

I remember a passage in this article that has been removed since:

"Scientists who maintain race as an important biological concept point out that in determining overall relatedness the entire genetic cohorts of groups must be compared. When this is done, a grouping pattern emerges that closely follows traditional race groupings."

Fact is, there are populations all over the world, or used to be in recent history, who have been virtually isolated for presumably several ten thousand years, as also indicated by genetic research, with very limited gene-flow with neighbouring populations if any occurring for many thousands of years, enough for quite distinct populations to form. Relic populations (whether historical or contemporary) are especially conspicuous along the shores of the Indian Ocean. Coon seemed to be well aware of them, as well as several of his precedents, who postulated an additional "brown" or "South Asian" race that has ever since been largely forgotten. Even the Australian natives have subsequently been ignored or simply been subsumed under "Asian/Mongolid" (or "Caucasian"), the San under "African/Negroid", and the natives of South Asia under "Caucasian" (or "Asian"), vastly simplifying the picture, and all of this seems to have happened out of principle: Reducing the picture to the familiar (and popular) Negroid-Caucasian-Mongoloid triad to make it easier to argue that differences are negligible or at best clinal, and (even relative) isolation has not taken place, given all the interchange that has happened in the last few centuries. However, going back a few centuries or millennia, the picture would be far less obviously muddled, with far more populations around the world strongly isolated due to far less mobility and interchange. Still the theorists of the 18th and 19th century lived in a much more strongly partitioned, fragmented world, not nearly as globalised as the modern world, which may have influenced their views. Many ethnic groups known to them have been marginalised and largely slipped out of the conscience of the vast majority of people, even anthropologists, and not infrequently have been actively airbrushed out of existence for political reasons, and as a consequence the (not only) phenotypical variety in many parts of the world that old books still display has been largely forgotten, as well as the fact that certain parts of the world are not only ethnolinguistically and culturally, but also phenotypically extremely varied. The prototypical "Negroids", "Caucasians" and "Mongolids", West Africans (or Bantu), Scandinavians and Central Asians (or Northern Chinese) respectively, make up for only a small part of human phenotypical as well as ethnolinguistical variety, both within Africa and without.

My conclusion is that the issue is not as clear-cut and decided as many people try to portray it, perhaps indeed motivated by a misguided understanding of "political correctness". Also, arguing against the validity of a popular or obsolete understanding of "race" as subspecies where "mixes" are treated as "hybrids" and even value judgments attached is indeed shooting down a strawman. Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

That said, criticising the concept of human races and the classification of humanity into races as artificial and arbitrary downplays the fact that the species concept is artificial and arbitrary, as well, and even worse, the concepts of genus, family, etc. While cladistics provides a superior alternative, the use of species, genus etc. in practice is not criticised. Even if one does not agree with Gill and maintains that differences between human populations are entirely clinal, it's the same as the classification of dialects or colours: to some extent artificial and arbitrary, but not unscientific. Science can't take every individual case on its own; it's the very nature of science to make generalisations and proceed from them. It is no use to point out that every human being is different from every other human being and leave it at that, that no two persons talk exactly the same, that no two colours are exactly the same, that no two snowflakes are identical - that means splitting reality up endlessly and kills science. Viewed that way, it's the denial that is unscientific.

It is also notable that according to the article racism, opposition against miscegenation (as in the case of many far-right groups), without a belief in inherent differences of values between different races, is apparently not racism. On the other hand, it is pointed out that racial discrimination is nothing different from ethnic discrimination (especially given the insistence that races don't really exist), but then the question arises why such a loaded term is used in the first place. Isn't ethnic discrimination bad enough in itself? It seems that some people prefer the term "racism" because it implies that the belief in races is itself a bad thing, which is an extremely questionable and dangerous assumption.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with the belief in races. I do not see anything wrong with "miscegenation", but neither with the belief that "miscegenation" is somehow a bad thing, as wrong as it may be. Even the belief in the inherent superiority of one's ethnic group is not necessarily a bad thing. It's actions and laws that matter, not personally held beliefs. Without the alarmism and moral outrage regularly involved in dealing with such beliefs, it would be easier to deal with those beliefs on a one-by-one basis and assess its merits and drawbacks rationally, instead of lumping everyone who even considers any such position or the mere validity of the concept of human races into the "racist" pool. Presumably even Gill. I'm sure that it would be much easier to fight unwelcome supremacist tendencies widespread in the population if one did not dismiss ideas as inherently evil or misguided, but by calm discussion and explanation, sine ira et studio.

The best antidote to "racism", in my view, is inspiring fascination with the incredible diversity of humanity, and a stronger sense of how the most different ethnic groups all over the world have something interesting to offer, and how Europeans and their descendants aren't the is-all and end-all of history. (Anyone familiar with the achievements of Muslim, Indian or Japanese scholars in the centuries in which Europe was still busy catching up with the sophistication of Asian culture, as late as the 17th century? Or with the amazing adaptations and complex cultures of seemingly "backwards" peoples?) Acknowledging the popular concept of human races, despite its problems, can actually help popularising the awareness of ethnic-cultural diversity and its inherent value, broadening people's horizons, and lessening the prejudice against the strange and exotic. After all, one fears only what one does not know. Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Florian - talk pages are not the place to present extended discussions of content, outside of what's needed to change material on the article itself. if yu would like to edit the article, please feel free to add any sourced material you like. If you have a particular issue with article content, can you state it more succinctly? I'm not in the mood to read an essay. --Ludwigs2 17:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Though I quietly applaud Florian's comments, Ludwigs2 is right: while concrete and actionable suggestions for improvement are welcome, this isn't the place for open-ended discussion. --Aryaman (talk) 19:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

How about the two of you steer the discussion back to where it should be: to a battle-plan to change the article. Let me be as clear as I can: the current article isn't worth much and has to be re-written. What Florian wants to hear is that if he were to re-write it, you'd back him up. Tell him that you'll help him! 80.219.22.194 (talk) 06:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Restructure the article like the Enlightenment would want us to

This is not an article about human races, its the long throat-clearing before such an article. This article should be structured as follows:

# Introduction, listing of the races, with a link to each, pointing to picture Neighbor-joining_Tree.
# Minor throat-clearing (possibly with a reference to an article full of throat-clearing).
# More detailed discussion the modern taxonomy. If there's several ones, discussed they should be. 
# Historic taxonomies, briefly give an overview about older ways to classify humans, again pointing to a specialized article.

Please, for the sake of the enlightenment's ideals: stick your political agenda where the sun don't shine or keep in articles that discuss that. Of course you can write here that the models are debated, but an article on human races should primarily discuss, well, human races, and NOT the question how they came into place, if they're politically correct, lead to discrimination … those are all interesting concerns, but are ultimately their own subjects, and only pollute this article, which, I re-iterate, should be on human races. Mention the concerns and link to specialized articles on the topic. 80.219.22.194 (talk) 09:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is unusually long, and it probably ought to focus on the concept from which it gets its name. I'd suggest that Race debate, which currently just redirects right back to this article, be turned into a separate page and be allowed to adopt much of the "throat-clearing" from this one. Generally an article should not spend too much time questioning whether it has any basis in reality (although, for basic NPOV and context, some "minor throat-clearing" may indeed be necessary). As a matter of comparison, I've done a fair amount of work on the major depressive disorder article. There are some significant opinions that major depressive disorder does not exist, and some editors wanted to give those views particular emphasis. But no matter how much WP:WEIGHT those views may have, that weight impinges upon the intrinsic purpose of the article, which is to elucidate the concept after which the article is named. In the case of race, the debate may be even more prominent than that over depression, but the prominence of the debate could be all the more reason for it to have a separate article, and indeed to show up here in summary form (i.e., as "minor throat-clearing"). (All politics aside, this suggestion might present a reasonable way to trim this article into a WP:FA-worthy size. Again for a rough comparison, a significantly trimmed MDD page made FA, but even it left editors with substantial reservations about its length.) Cosmic Latte (talk) 13:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This is an article about "race," not the specific human races, the very identifiaction of which has been rejected by most scientists and is under question by many more. What you consider "throat clearing" is what real scientists consider science. And this article is the product of considerable work by knowledgabl editors to present all significant views from reliable sources on the matter. And that is our policy . What is this "Enlightenment" bullshit? Do you think that your interpretation of the Enlightenment is the truth? The issue here is not whether we should be representing 18th century views of race - the Enlightenment established the importance of critical thinking as well as empirical research and scientists today do both, and as a result have learned things 18th century scholars did not know about human biology. But hat is not the point. The point is that Wikipedia does not present "the truth," not yours or mine. It presents all significant views from reliable sources. Point out a view that is not significant, or point out a source that is not reliable.

The exsistence of a Wikipedia article does not mean that the object refered to in the title exists. We have an article on God and that does not mean that God exists - or that he does not. We have an article on gravity, and physicists are really divided over how well they know what gravity really is, if indeed it exists at all - Newton thought it was a force, for Einstein it was just the visible sign of the shape of space-time. This article is on race, and if race is a controversial concept, we have to say so. If the meaning of race has changed over the centuries, we have to say so. if scientists debate whether the term applies to humans, we say so. This lagic that "we have an article on it so we have to talk about it as if it exists and everyone agrees about its definition or characteristics" is the worst form of sophistry. This is an extremely informative article on how scientists have used the term race. You do not like it perhpas for your own political or racial views. So what? We stick to significant vies from reliabl source. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:28, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally (for whatever it may be worth), I think that both 80.219.22.194 and Slrubenstein have worthy arguments here. But regardless of whose is stronger, I still think that the size issue needs to be addressed. At 71 kb readable prose, this article is really testing the limits of WP:SIZERULE. Creating a race debate article might be one way to address the issue. Perhaps there is a better way, but some route probably ought to be taken. Cosmic Latte (talk) 20:35, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is a reasonable concern. My own view is that articles on controversial topics will necessarily be longer - to achieve NPOV and to be informative, they have to cover a lot of ground. But I agree this is a long article. Creating linked articles on specific topics is a common solution. But given the amount of time and effort that went into ensuring that this article is fully compliant with NPOV, V, and NOR, I think we just need to discuss proposed sollutions or changes first, and move cautiously. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

The reason why the article is so long is because Slrubenstein and others have a political agenda to pursue. Not only that but they also have other juvenile ideas, for example, Slrubenstein believes that the fact that scientists use photos of people to help classify humans should be hidden from the public record.

The present article is actually an improvement over previous versions so I suppose we have reason to hope that left-wing nonsense will eventually be purged from Wikipedia and that corrupt academics will one day be ostracized from the scientific community. 86.44.155.215 (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know who's got what agenda exactly. I know that in "The blank slate," Steven Pinker asserts (without much discussion) that of course human races exist. And seriously, no person with their eyes intact can deny that humans can be clustered by their appearance. Now I presume this correlates with their genetic distance. To learn more about that, I looked into this article, which doesn't discuss the phenomenon, but rather the long standing of people that deny it altogether, and others who abused the fact for their own ends.

I'm not saying that the debate whether races exist or not isn't interesting. I'm sure it is, and there should be an article about that argument. But it'd be nice to learn something about the genetic clustering of humans and the individual specialties of those clusters: or, where I can learn more about it. I'd also be interested in finding out how certain differences came about: why exactly are Chinese noses usually flatter than Germans? How did that evolve? There is an interesting answer to the question, that'd be my point. 80.219.22.194 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC).

Quote request

I have tagged the following assertion (currently in the article lead) as in need of a quotation for verification: "In the 20th century alone, race was the motivation and basis for genocide of tens of millions of people, including but not limited to Armenians, Australian indigenous people, Jews and Tutsis" (capitalization courtesy of yours truly). What is that even supposed to mean? For one thing, "race" is not a type of motivation. Power, hunger, pleasure--those are forms of motivation. They compel people toward action. But race?! Is there a race-devoid state that people yearn to fill? I thought the mere existence of race was up for debate. But now, not only does it obviously exist, but it's the driving force behind outrageous acts of human violence?! I have a hunch that, whenever the tagged statement is deciphered, it'll turn out to be a colossal oversimplification or distortion of the source material. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it all really does boil down to "race = genocide", just like that. But the WP:BURDEN of evidence is not on me. Cosmic Latte (talk) 02:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S. The above doesn't reflect my usual tone on here, but it's discouraging to see not only what appears to be an attempt (however conscious or unconscious) to "smear" the concept of race, but what also seems to play the "genocide" card, period. Loring Brace, for example, can argue eloquently against the concept of race without ever invoking anything that dramatic. If nothing else, the tagged line emotionally outshines the rest of the lead, and this effect does not strike one as appropriate for an encyclopedia article. Cosmic Latte (talk) 02:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

You are right. I deleted it. David.Kane (talk) 04:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Way too long.

There are articles within this article that can stand alone as their own pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrion20 (talk • contribs) 00:55, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

RACE AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

I feel like this section should be in the very beginning of the article. It shouldn't be tucked away in the middle of article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrion20 (talk • contribs) 02:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Even before "history"? What would this accomplish--apart, that is, from taking things out of context and, in all likelihood, breaking WP:LAWS #14 (not a "law" in the sense of "policy", but the best summary of WP:NPOV I've ever seen)? I much prefer your suggestion that preceded this one: Take the stuff that isn't WP:SS with regard to race, and spin it out into daughter articles; make all key points arrive in better time. The challenge, of course, is figuring out where the heck to begin. Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, after thinking about it, I do agree with your opinion. And yes, it is definitely difficult to pinpoint where to start. It's hard to organize concepts like this on a webpage when they are still are not fully understood by society. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrion20 (talk • contribs) 22:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Neanderthal admixture

Evidence has been presented of Neanderthal admixture in the DNA of non-African populations. --Millstoner (talk) 21:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

This discussion belongs in the article on human evolution. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Or perhaps a new article titled Humanderthal Evolution. ;) --Millstoner (talk) 13:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Ha! That's a good one. 110.32.131.13 (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Deletionism and race as basis for genocide during the 20th century

How could this article ignore some of the most known events of the 20th century into this article? You would be hard to pressed to find people alive who wouldn't have heard of the WWII holocaust, as an example. Significance/notability is clear.

There is no historical evidence of any ambiguity as to whether race was used to discriminate and target whole populations for genocide during the mentioned events, whatever it's particular definition was during each event. And no ambiguity as to whether in most cases race was the motivation at the same time for political and economical gain. A very accurate, verifiable contemporary reference is provided.

In other words, notability and verifiability have already been provided evidence for. Thus there are no credible, verifiable argument for deletion – although there might be room for alternate views if verifiable source can be provided. Casimirpo (talk) 15:51, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the statement again. I agree that the lead and the article should cover racist atrocities, but the cited examples ar enot really about race. Neither jews, armenians, or tutsis were persecuted on a strictly racial basis (ethnic and religious boundaries were equally or more important). The stolen generations doesn't really fit the description mass murder although it was clearly an attempt at cultural ethnocide (I think it was also culturally motivated rather than racially). I think we can get better examples of racially motiovated atrocities (e.g. eugenics). I also removed the statement that "race can be useful" based on the statement of one forensic anthropologist - we would need to show that this is a notable and widely held view and source it to more than just one person.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

The article already violated WP:SIZE. We need to shrink it, not expand it. Your additions may be correct and well-sourced, but they violate WP:UNDUE. If you wanted to substantially edit/cut other material so that WP:SIZE is met, I would have fewer problems with your addition. David.Kane (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

you can't violate WP:Size - that is a guideline and not a cause for removing material.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Maunus – your personal opinion on the motivation for genocide is not relevant. Please see WP:Verifiable. According to the source, race was the basis and motivation. --Casimirpo (talk) 17:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, if publication by Cambridge University Press containing referenced articles by 16 authors (historians) is not notable enough for you, feel free to try to find alternate or opposing views. Original research on "stolen generations" has no place here, please keep it to yourself. --Casimirpo (talk) 17:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Aaaand whats more: Note – the claim doesn't say "on a strictly racial basis" or as Cosmic Latte asked "explanation is... just race?". No, the source doesnt say strictly or only, but that the motivation behind the genocides was racial and that ideological basis was racial in all these cases (read the source on google books or research on these racist concepts: aryans, hamitic hypothesis, hamidians, half-caste koori.) How the acts were rationalized, or sold to the public, etc. varied considerably. It's a bitter pill to accept I suppose. --Casimirpo (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Would you mind providing the quote and/or the page number where it is explicitly stated that "race" was at the core of each of those genocides? I would like that because as the article demonstrates "race" can mean a nmumber of things and it would be relevant to know which meaning of race is used by the source when it states that those genocides were racially motivated.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

On page 51 Kiernan seems to conclude the opposite of what you argue when he says that "... virulent, violent mix of racism, religious prejudice, expansionism and the idealization of cultivation. Each of those factors is, of course, a relatively harmless component of nationalist ideology. Taken singly, non is a sufficient condition even for mass murder, but their deadly combination is a persistent feature of twentieth century genocide." This is exactly what I meant. It is incorrect and wildly reductionist to say that one single concept of "race" was at the root of the genocides mentioned, they were all much more complex phenomena that involved racial, religious, political and other ideological factors. Your own source draws this conclusion.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, read the sentence again. It doesn't imply that a 'one single concept of "race"' did anything – you are making things up. That reveals you are really not understanding the concept of "definition" in an Wikipedia article or the claim (sentence) at hand. In my opinion a little more background research would help you approach this.

It seems to me you think this is some simple arithmetical concept. The racially motivated genocides of the 20th century.

What Kiernan talks about is nationalism, not the dynamics behind racially motivated genocide. Please read the whole source. You are incorrectly quoting the source, and applying quotation into wrong context.

Look, just being motivated to delete this one claim wont get you anywhere, nor will Pick-and-mix-type editing. You have to read a quite few statements to get a historical perspective, not to mention perspective on century of racially motivated violence. --Casimirpo (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the generous serving of condescension. Kiernan's article is the only one in the article that explicitly has race as its topic and in the very last paragraph of that chapter he concludes that racism alone can not explain the genocides of the twentieth century. Perhaps you should provide other quotes where it is specifically mentioned that race and racist ideologies were the principal causes behind those genocides. You are accusing me of thinking this is some simple arithmetical concept, but I am the one arguing that you can't boil those genocides down to a single cause - and that is what the phrase in the lead does and that is why it is hyperbole.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

We have articles on both Racism and Genocide and it seems to me that those are the articles for a discussion of these views and sources. We can simply ensure that this article has links to those. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Your point comes across as: never describe context or outcome, only link to it? Well, I linked from the statement describing context and outcome. Or do you have an actual argument? Well, the point here being - the concept of race leads to genocide and racism, and to provide historical perspective on how race as classification of human beings has served humanity. --Casimirpo (talk) 20:58, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

That may be your point - but it is not the point of the source you use that "race as a classification of human beings has served humanity" in any particular way. It is the point of your source that race can be either a "harmless component of a national ideology" or participate in "a virulent and violent combination" with other concepts and then may eventually lead to genocide. You are making the source argue a point that the author of the source is not arguing - that is WP:SYNTH. And you are seemingly adamant about the article expressing a certain viewpoint about race as a classification of human beings namely "how it has served humanity". That is not objective science that is soapboxing. The definition in Wikipedia is when we describe the different views about a topic - "race is bad because it may cause genocide" is a view, but it is not the view argued by your source which is simply stating that racial concepts has been a participating component causing genocide - just like religion. Do you also argue that the lead of Religion should have a sentence describing the atrocities in human history in which religion has played a role? The purpose of this article is to describe what kind oif a concept "race as a classification of human beings" is and has been - not express a viewpoint about what the concept leads to.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Not quite correct. You can take your soap-box accusations to Cambridge University Press and the authors of the book. Even if my description of the claim is something, the claim itself is correct according to the source. Simply - race has been used as a motivation and basis for genocide.

The source clearly states many times, in different ways, that in each of the mentioned events, race was used as motivion or justification of some sort, as basis for actions against group of people perceived to belong to some "race". There is no ambiguiety about this, in the events mentioned. Verifiably.

The claim makes no statements as to whether the concepts of race are sometimes useful, harmless or not. Other parts of the article provide depth into that. It should be clear that genocide is never harmless. You also seem to think I should tackle all aspects of race in one paragraph? Or are you implying we focus only on the useful and harmless?

Also, note that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Articles need to provide perspective and historical context, as well as definitions. Attacking claims that provide historical perspective might be justified in Wiktionary. I hope your zeal with this article will continue in regards to every otehr claim and statement. --Casimirpo (talk) 08:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Would you please provide those statements from the book then, at least the page numbers so I can verify it. As is now the claim is sourced to the entire book, and as I have shown the conclusion I have found in that very book contradict what you would have it say. And please quit twisting my statements or assuming that I am on some kind of racialist agenda if you knew just a little about my editing history you would know that that is not the case. ·Maunus·ƛ· 09:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I will try to do that asap. I am not saying you have an racist agenda, or anything about your person, I am just countering or replying to your arguments here. Casimirpo (talk) 14:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If Maunus' and Captain Occams so called consensus means leaving out verifiable, notable facts, I don't want any part of it. In fact, arguing with people who only have their personal opinion as arguments is futile. Thus I will not undo the edit. Happy censoring!! --Casimirpo (talk) 13:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

This article goes on too much about what race is not

There a huge section about how human race is not a subspecies (maybe true), clade (true), or population (odd). But the article kind of forgets to mention that race is of taxonomic significance. Isn't this a bit backwards and unnecessary? Am I missing something? mikemikev (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article should talk more about how race is basically a folk taxonomic system of social differentiation and stratification.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it obvious I was talking about the biology section? mikemikev (talk) 19:28, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, then we could just cut the biology section. In biology race is a subspecies and biologists agree that there is only one subspecies of humans alive today, all humans are H. sapiens sapiens. People who use the folk taxonomy of race often believe they know something about biological differences among humans. So I see some reason to including a section on how scientists understand biological differences among humans. Besides, there is historical significance - it was only after scientists rejectes race as a robust way of studying biological difference samong humans, that social scientists developed theories of race as a folk taxonomic system of social differentiation and stratification. It certainly seems educational, which gets at the purpose of an encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:07, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Isn't "taxonomy" something that is used by zoologists? Just asking. Anyway, I was thinking about the first sentence as "The term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or ancestral groups on the basis of various sets of perceived heritable characteristics" since the relevant characteristics (which are heritable) are ambiguous, and highly subjective. Steveozone (talk) 04:37, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The word is probably most used by zoologists, but everybody uses taxonomic principles to classify beings and things as belonging to classes and subclasses of eachother. Most of these are "folk taxonomies" with no scientific basis. Racial classification of humans is one of those. ·Maunus·ƛ· 04:41, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Huh. Learn a new word everyday (today, I learned "syllogism" yet again) So, taxonomy as to humans is a matter of perception then, eh? Steveozone (talk) 04:57, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we should drop the section. But it can be cut right down. A short discussion of how race is not a subspecies or clade, then a caveat that it is of scientific taxonomic significance.

This quote from Dawkins (The Ancestors Tale, 2004) seems eminently suitable:

We can happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes in forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn’t mean that race is of ‘virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’. This is Edward’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.

mikemikev (talk) 05:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me, Mikemikev. I don't mean to argue. But let me point out that it is that very danger of overgeneralization and false proxies that is according to sociologists and legal scholars the root of "positive discrimination." I know it's a scientific term, but I'm beginning to wonder whether "taxonomy" means "the labels people have given to some characteristics." Steveozone (talk) 06:51, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Please feel free to argue! I don't know much about positive discrimination, but I think that's beside the main point here. As for taxonomy, it's not so much the name given to characteristics, but how things are classified according to characteristics. It's essentially about characteristic correlation. There's little essential difference between folk and scientific taxonomy, scientific taxonomy is just more informed; i.e. whales are not fish. mikemikev (talk) 07:13, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I tend to argue. Bear with me; there were several points above. "Positive Discrimination," as I understood you to say, is a phenomenon that results from the use of false proxies; i.e., "simplifying by providing easy labels is innocuous (desserts are 'frozen' or 'baked'), therefore all taxonomy is innocuous." I don't buy it, since I like Baked Alaska. Here's an example: "Woman" as distinct from "Man" is a good proxy for "potentially child-bearing." There were many not too long ago who employed a false proxy of "gender" as a quick test (proxy) for whether a person could achieve sufficient acumen and experience to run a business. You can't really blame folks who thought that, since for many years (perhaps even now) there's women who bear and care for children to the expense of career. It's a false proxy, though, because there have always been women who don't wish to sacrifice career to bear and raise children (and many who do both). If there is a possibility that some hiring managers will start from a postulate that gender is relevant to the prospects of a young girl becoming a Fortune 500 CEO, there is therefore a risk that the managers will rely on gender as a false proxy for business acumen, which would be an overgeneralization, and would lead to positive discrimination. The girl who is a skilled economist, well versed in finance, exceptional in human relations, and gifted in organizational theory, may well be passed over. The creation of "taxonomies" may be helpful, but if they're not precise, they don't mean much, do they? Here, a taxonomy based on gender may not be very helpful. Now, substitute a racial group for gender, and any sort of stereotype you can imagine. I'm not arguing in this mental exercise that such thoughts really happen (although I believe that they do, consciously or otherwise) -- but it should be easy to see how some could mistakenly use "race" as a false proxy for social grace, or for industrious spirit, or... In that sense, the prospect of positive discrimination is highly relevant. "Taxonomy" lends scientific credence to a concept that is not at all precise -- there are folks that draw distinctions based on false proxies, so there's a gigantic difference between scientific taxonomy and "folk taxonomy." Steveozone (talk) 08:19, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not what I say, it's what Richard Dawkins says. With that in mind, and continuing to ignore the aside about positive discrimination, which you incorrectly consider to be a point about taxonomy, your argument appears to be: Folk taxonomies do not reduce uncertainty by 100%, therefore, any scientific taxonomy related to a folk taxonomy is useless. Can you confirm that? mikemikev (talk) 12:40, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

"Well, then we could just cut the biology section. In biology race is a subspecies and biologists agree that there is only one subspecies of humans alive today, all humans are H. sapiens sapiens." -Slrubenstein

Do you read what you write? Maybe not or maybe you are just a pathological lier. Humans are questionably classified as a species which is called "Homo sapiens" - it makes no sense to say that all living humans are classified as a sub-species, no sense whatsoever. Second, you contradicted yourself. You wrote that scientists accept the subspecies concept and that they reject it. Make your mind up. You do know that the two word mean the smae thing don't you? I suspect you do but have some sort of childish agenda to promote. 86.42.247.55 (talk) 22:52, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Re. "it makes no sense to say that all living humans are classified as a sub-species": Sure it does, once you consider the position that a subspecies called Homo sapiens neanderthalensis used to exist. It can be helpful (can it not?), with regard to this position, to distinguish the surviving H. sapiens sapiens from the extinct H. sapiens neanderthalensis. What doesn't make sense is that this article goes into so much depth about the race-as-subspecies idea at all. The subtitle of the page is "classification of human beings". When people talk about "race" in this sense, they aren't talking about people vs. Neanderthals. While germane to a discussion of race more generally, the subspecies discussion seems to extend significantly beyond the article's self-designated scope. Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Pruning shears

Here are some observations of mine (feel free to add your own!) which might come in handy to those who wish to trim this article down to a size and depth that won't overwhelm the living daylights out of anyone who isn't already reasonably competent in biology and/or anthropology:

• This article is supposed to be about race insofar as it is used in the "classification of human beings". In reality, however, the article--especially the modern debates section--is mostly about race in biology overall. An article devoted to race as a taxonomic category already exists, but it says very little. A lot of this article could be grafted onto that one.

• The key points of the "race debate", as I gather from the article and its sources, are (along with some additional commentary) as follows:
  • The concept of race has a history. As often is the case, this history A) follows a route from less to greater nuance and sophistication, and B) passes through stages of acceptance, rejection, and reconciliation--i.e., thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In the case of race (insofar as humans are classified), the most significant contrasts between A) lesser and greater nuance and sophistication and B) acceptance and rejection are those involving stances of essentialism (e.g., All members of Race X possess Trait Y) and those involving non-essentialist positions.
  • At the organismic level, essentialism is scientifically obsolete (once could cite Elliott Sober here), but remains socially reflected in in-group/out-group sentiments. These sentiments are not objectively valid (i.e., they are "socially constructed"), because they imply discrete divisions amongst single traits (e.g., skin colour) that are actually clinal gradients. After essentialism, then, cline becomes the next key term.
  • I think we all can agree that a lot of popular beliefs are ignorant of clines. There is already an article, called social interpretations of race, that can explore this ignorance in-depth. However, academics on both sides of the debate are aware of clinal variation. Their point of contention--again, regarding race as a human category--is over whether traits (clinal and otherwise) differentiate and cluster in a manner that is best understood in racial terms. I am willing to bet (and have been told something to the effect) that Loring Brace--a fierce opponent of racial categories--could look at a skull and almost instantly classify it according to Coon's racial categories. He would rather not do so, however, because he finds a different classification scheme--one of "geographic labels"--to be more biologically and socially sound. Biologically, he emphasizes non-correlation among clinal traits. Socially, he rejects the essentialist "baggage" that comes along with race. The idea is not that race isn't "real", but rather that its connotations aren't warranted. Other scientists, such as George W. Gill, maintain that the connotations are warranted because, e.g., clinal variation is overstated, "race" must be acknowledged if "racism" is to be combated, and racial categories have practical value when it comes to solving crimes. Sound familiar? All of this stuff is tightly summarized (along with a citation of both Brace's and Gill's views) in the article's lead. But the article loses sight of the scholarly debate over what value race-as-human-category holds, and digresses into a list of a thousand ways that a thousand kinds of people could affirm or deny an idea called "race".
• So: Perhaps we can move a lot of the biological stuff to Race (biology), and put a lot of the social stuff in social interpretations of race, keeping the debate section of this article focused more or less on A) the consequences of essentialism; B) the existence of clinal variation; and C) the question over whether A and B are prominent enough to discourage racial categories, or are instead outshone by factors warranting these categories. I'm not suggesting that any information from this article be removed entirely from Wikipedia, but rather that the article be trimmed with, well, classification in mind. And by that I mean, classification of this article's current subject matter into A) biological classification, B) social classification, and C) that happy little place where biological and social classification meet--namely, human classification. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:46, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Nice analysis Cosmic. I generally agree.

I think the whole "race/subspecies" question is of little value here. It seems to be a strawman set up by those who want to attack the idea of biological race. The article goes on and on attempting to imply that 'subspecies' is the lowest taxonomic category, that race is synonomous with subspecies: Generally when it is used it is synonymous with subspecies, and that there is only one subspecies in homo sapiens. Well, then race when applied to humans is not synonymous with subspecies and the whole section can go. There is some good stuff here about subspecies, which can go in the subspecies article as Cosmic said, not this article. mikemikev (talk) 08:27, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

What do reliable sources say about this? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 05:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This article should be trimmed enough to be compliant with WP:SIZE. David.Kane (talk) 11:20, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

If you want to trim it down, some parts should be placed to separate sub-articles. Some critical points to notice: (a) Race(human) is the same as Race(biology); (b) Race and sub-species are slightly different categories; (c) the existence of race is fully consistent with genetic research; (d) no, race is not a "social construct".Biophys (talk) 04:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I see much of the length of the article (in bytes of article text) comes from a considerable number of citations to both primary and secondary sources. Who is checking the sources as the edits proceed? I think I have just a few of the sources at hand (I mostly edit articles in which "race" is a peripheral rather than central topic) but I hope those of us looking on are checking sources to make sure that the article text becomes better and better sourced and more and more neutral in point of view as editing continues. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

"Who is checking the sources as the edits proceed?" Uhh, probably no one. This article should be cut, both in size and number of references. References which are more general (secondary), more recent and more freely available should be favored. David.Kane (talk) 14:21, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I just want to make sure I am understanding Cosmitc Latte correctly. This is the omnibus article on race among humans, and as such should cover all approaches to race among humans. As with other articles on complex subjects, as this article grew, linked articles were created, with summaries kept in this article. If all you are suggesting is to continue that practice I have no objection. Virtually every main section could be its own article, with a summary here. we just have to make sure that (1) the summaries here are acurate summaries of the linked articles and (2) the summaries flow together well enough in this article to provide any reader with a good introduction into the various debates about "race" among humans. I think the major points to hit on is (1) biologists moved away from the 19th and early 20th century view that there were many human races, to the conclusion that there is only one human race today (H. sapiens sapiens); (2) that genotypic variation is best studied in terms of populations and clinal variation i.e. groups are statistical entities and differences within and between groups are mosly quantitative; (3)that "race" is socially constructed and thus the meaning of race and racial taxonomies often differ from one society to another; (4) that phenotypic traits are often important, but seldom exclusive, determinents of race. As long as this article explains these clearly, giving an indication of the debates behind them and when necessary minority views which I suppose can be covered in detail in the linked articles, I see no problems. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Point (1) is an error. Race (biology) ≠ Subspecies. So, the subspecies is the same (an example of a different human subspecies is Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), but races are different. Point (3) may be right as long as you are talking about race in social sciences or politics. Not so in biology. It seems you are trying to tell: "there is no such thing as race". Do you really mean it?Biophys (talk) 19:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the source for the definition of "race" that you appear to have in mind? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we should create a separate page Human population genetics and place some of the content [1] there. It seems we do not have such article except this: [2]. The racial composition by countries (USA, Brazil, etc.) should be significantly reduced and mostly placed in the corresponding sub-articles. I also agree with keeping the "social interpretation of race" mostly in other articles.Biophys (talk) 15:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I am flexible on the creation of Human population genetics, but note that we also have Human genetic clustering and Human genetic variation, which are fairly high quality articles. Perhaps Human population genetics would be a good main article with Human genetic clustering and Human genetic variation as good daughter articles of it? David.Kane (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Agree. One must be careful here.Biophys (talk) 19:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

What secondary sources that meet good criteria for research sources do you recommend on this topic? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

How about one of the leading evolutionary biologists of 20th century, Ernst W. Mayr, author of "Populations, Species, and Evolution"? That is what he thought] about "race matters". Biophys (talk) 22:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I have read other writings of Mayr, and agree with you that the essay you kindly shared has a good perspective on the subject of the article. I see a rationale in his essay for keeping the structure of this article much as it now is. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

@Biophys, I am confused. How can you ask me if I think race is not real, when I wrote that it is a social construction? Social construtions are real, and in many cases - increasingly, in most cases - far harder to change than phenotypic traits. Are you saying that biologists do not equate race with subspecies? The biologists I have spoken to make this equation. Maybe not all do, but this is a significant view it not the majority view. As for biology vs. social sciences, well, science is science. Electricity is not different for chemists than it is for physicists. Social scientists who write on race are informed by research in biology and any reasonable biologist would take into account what social scientists say. That said, I think there are plenty of cases where social scientists AND biologists use racial categories as surrogates for "population." They can usually get away with this under certain conditions. But if they think that makes race biological, they are just poor scientists. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:08, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, thank you for explaining your views. Subspecies is an official biological taxonomy category. Race is not. Hence the difference. Please see explanation here: [3]. "Race" and "population" are also different categories in biology. Many terms have different meaning depending on the scientific discipline, for example see Force field (disambiguation). I am not familiar with the meaning of race in social sciences. If it is the same as in biology, then it's not a "social construct" because biology has little to do with "social constructs" (they belong somewhere else, for example to politics).Biophys (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, you provide a link to a statement by a botanist who says that race is not used by botanists. This supports what is currently presented in the article as the mainstream view, that race is not a biological concept. If that is your point, we simply agree. But there are some who contnd that race is a biological concept. From the sources those people provide, the biologists who use race are zoologists (not botanists0 who use the term to refer to sub-species. In this sense, the term does not apply to humans. If I understand your most recent comments, then, we agree that the article has to provide a coherent explanation for why race, at least applied to humans (but you are saying to plants as well) is not a biological concept. Fine.

But to respond to something else you wrote: Of course biology deals with social constructs. The only reason one would deny this is if one also denies the modern theory of evolution, which is the basic framework for all modern biology (unfortunately, some people with PhDs in biology have very narrow training - for example in techniques of molecular genetics - and are capable of saying some very dumb things about biology. But any well-trained biologist will spot the errors. But then again, all scientists at one time or another say something stupid, it doesn't matter whether they are in the life sciences or the social sciences). According to the theory of evolution all live is descended from a common ancestor and evolution is a process through which the descendents of this common ancesotr differentiated into species. Humans are one of these species. One major difference between humans and other species is that we think and communicate symbolically (unlike other organisims that communicate indexically or iconically). If you believe in the theory of evolution, this development must be adaptive, and it is for scientists to fibure out how,. But one consequence of this adaptation is that humans live in a world of social constructions.

You provided a link to an interesting essay by Mayr on my talk page. It is from an essay published in Daedalus, which shows that journal's desire to promote dialogue among scholars in different fields. Among other things, Mayr is arguing for his own concept of "geographic race." It is a neologism, and an interesting one, but I sense that it is his proposal, and not his reporting on what all biologists now agree. I haven't seen much evidence that all biologists now agree to use the term "geographic race" rather than just "race," and to use it as he means, but maybe he will succeed. In the meantime, I am fairly certain that the general public does not use the term "geographic race" instead of "race" and do not understand the term the way he uses it.

Mayr also provides one of those examples of scientists saying dumb things. Among other things he writes;

In the first place, the biological facts may help to remind us just how new the political concept of equality really is. When we look at social species of animals, we discover that there is always a rank order. There may be an alpha-male or an alpha-female, and all other individuals of the group fall somewhere below them in the rank order.

A similar rank-ordering has long marked many human societies as well. During the years I lived in a small village of Papuans in the mountains of New Guinea, the local chief had three wives, other high-ranking members of the village had one, and a number of "inferior" tribesmen had no wives at all. Nineteenth-century British society distinguished clearly between aristocrats, gentlemen, and common workingmen. As George Eliot describes in the novel Middlemarch, there was even a rank order within each of these major classes.

Now, there is a real slip here. Mayr is neither an ethologist nor an anthropologist. In the first paragraph, he makes a claim about animal societies that is in fact supported by mainstream scholarship in ethology. In the second paragraph he makes a claim about a Papuan New Guinea society that is actually contradicted by mainstream research in anthropology. Here is an example where a very good scientist lets his personal beliefs get in the way of good science. The fact is, first, anthropologists have demonstrated that whereas the rank order mayr refers to, that is found in Gorilla societies for example, is instinctive (most would say 100% heritable), it is not instictive among humans. This is important because it means evolutionary scientists have to ask, why would a species evolve that does not have this system of rank? Mayr entirely misses the real question. And in fact this is a question lots of biological anthropologists give a tremendous amount of attention to. But after all, biological anthropologists are the experts on human evolution; Mayr is not. What is surprising is that he seems not to have taken the time to read what one would find in a introductory level textbook. In the essay you shared with me, Mayr suggests that the ideas of democracy and equality only developed around the time of the Enlightenment, and the American and French revolutions. Well, this may be the popular folktale Europeans tell about their own history. But it is not a scientifically tenable hypothesis. Mayr is suggesting that rank was somehow instictive among humans until the 17th-19th century, when new ideas of equality and democracy developed. If he was right to equate rank in papua New Guinea and Middlemarch with rank among Gorillas, this means that there was a radical jump in human evolution in the 178th-19th centuries. But there is no evidence for such a jump. The real jump in human evolution was about two million years ago, and it is more plausible that big changes in human thought occured along with those big changes in human biology. And in fact, anthropologists have discovered that the ideas of democracy and equality are found in most hunter-gatherer societies. Since all the evidence is that before the Neolithic revolution humans were hunter-gatherers, they too had those ideas of equality and democracy.

So Mayr has it backwards. The development of rank among humans is not explained by genes but is a social construction. It is equality that is the produce of biological evolution (I mean of course relative equality, I am obviously not talking about Kropotkin's anarchy, I am simply talking about the lack of an alpha-male in human societies, the prevalence of monogamous marriage combined with the importance of sharing food between different households - patterns you just do not find in other animal species).

Now, when you write, "I am not familiar with the meaning of race in social sciences. If it is the same as in biology, then it's not a "social construct" because biology has little to do with "social constructs"" I infer that you just do not know much about research in biological anthropology. Biological anthropology may in many universities be placed in the same department as cultural anthropology, rather than biology. But we are just talking about the bureaucratic organization of a social institution, the university. If we are speaking strictly about science, biology encompasses the study of all living things. The reason that there is a large field called "biological anthropology" that is homed in a different department than "biology" is precisely because human beings evolved something (which anthropologists call "culture") that makes humans different from all other forms of life in a few really important ways. But Biological anthropologists are as much biologists as they are anthropologists, they are just the biologists whose focus is humanity, and that means that they have to try to answer questions other biologists do not have to answer. One of the questions they have to answer is, why woud a species evolve a capacity to socially construct different forms of social organization and different social identities? Humans did not evolve to be ranked (Mayr is just wrong), but they did evolve a capacity to socially construct rank - why? Humans did not evolve into distinct races, but they did evolve a capacity to socially construct "race" - why? The absense of rank and race in human beings must be the product of evolution and thus we should ask how it might be or might have been adaptive. The capacity to socially construct rank and race in human beings must be the product of evolution and thus we should ask how it might be or might have been adaptive. These are real questions and real scientists do real research on this; they don't just publish speculative opinion pieces like Mayr's essay in Daedalus, They get NSF and other grants to do extensive and in-depth research on these problems and publish articles and books on these questions.

It is bizarre how some people believe that if the theory of evolution is right, all human behavior should be explained by genes. That is not Darwin's theory of natural selection, that is just genetic determinism. The key to Darwin is first, descent with modification, and second, natural selection, so that those modifications that best fit the environment endure; the two together explain how speciesdifferentiate. Beavers construct dams; birds construct nests, humans construct society and are capable (unlike ants) of constructing a fantastic diversity of societies. This must be explicable as an adaptation. Otherwise you are saying that Darwin doesn't apply to humans.

I think there is a simple explanation for this mistake: most biologists do not study humans, and at a certain level a small set of Darwinian heuristics can be used to solve problems in the study of all the forms of life biologists study. But these heuristics don't apply to humans. So some people conclude that Darwin therefore does not apply to humans. That is the slip, that is the error. Darwin does apply to humans, you just need to be more innovative in how you apply Darwin to humans. It is not that "biology" has nothing to do with social construction, it is that 'ants and gorillas have nothing to do with social construction.

Start reading the vast work of biological anthropologists and you will see how all of this stuff fits with biological science. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Ernst W. Mayr provides a widely accepted definition of race in evolutionary biology. This not "his" concept. I gave a link to a popular article becase some people here are not biologists. And that is what biologists tell. Sorry, but I would rather move to editing other subjects.Biophys (talk) 16:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Mayr makes a good case in his essay for keeping the structure and content of this article much as it now is, so thanks for sharing. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Re. I think there is a dispute here, and it concerns the following questions.

• 1. "Race" versus "subspecies". They are not the same according to International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
• 2. "Race (humans)" versus "Race (biology)". According to Ernst W. Mayr, they are the basically same, and he explains why. That certainly contradicts the idea of race being a "social construct" rather than merely a divergent population of humans .Biophys (talk) 13:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you tell me where exacxtly the ICZN says that race and subspeices are not the same? Maybe soologists like botanists do not use the word race at all? Ernst Mayr then is just like anoy other Westerner, trying to justify a concept socially constructed in his own culture. In any event, he is not an expert on human races; the consensus among the specialists on humans is that there are no human races in a meaningful sense when one is studying humans biologically. That is pretty straightforward. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

From what I can remember, term "race" does not appear in biological taxonomy. The lowest official unit of the taxonomy is "subspecies", and that is what the codes of nomenclature tell. Term "race" appears in evolutionary population genetics essentially as a synonym of highly divergent populations (frequently as "geographic race" or "ecological race"). To deny the existence of races in biological sense is like to deny the existence of distinct (divergent) populations. How divergent different human populations are would be another matter. Biophys (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how denying the existence "the existence of races in biological sense is like to deny the existence of distinct (divergent) populations." On the contrary, anthropologists, who are the experts on this mattet do away with the word race and yet manage to do fine talking about distinct populations, clinal variation, and so on, without using the word at all. The word developed in an unscientific context that gets in the way of scientific discussion. But your point in ny event is prima fasce false: people who reject the race DO look at genetic variation, and are able to talk abou tit with greater precision and power. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

What exactly do they reject? What is their definition of race? Biophys (talk) 00:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

All right, I found it (Human genetic diversity and the nonexistence of biological races by Long JC, Kittles RA):

"The relative proportion of variation within and among groups therefore appears to be meaningless as a criterion for judging the validity of races or subspecies as defined by biologists." (!!!)

"The biological concepts of race identified in the preceding paragraph are distinct from common lay conceptualizations of race. One such lay concept postulates the existence of near-uniform groups of individuals that can be identified by a few externally visible traits such as skin color (Keita and Kittles 1997). The AAPA statement on race (American Association of Physical Anthropologists 1996) articulates a counter argument to this popular view. In fact, our findings are consistent with the key features of the AAPA view: that all human populations derive from a common ancestral group, that there is great genetic diversity within all human populations, and that the geographic pattern of variation is complex and presents no major discontinuity." and so on.

Thus, the AAPA statement (and lots of other statements) disproves "lay conceptualizations of race", but certainly not the biological concept of race I was talking about, for example as defined by famous Theodosius Dobzhansky (simply genetically distinct Mendelian populations, see quote in this article). Crystal clear.Biophys (talk) 03:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Could We Agree Jointly to Compile a Source List for This and Related Articles?

I see there is currently discussion about whether or not to restructure the article, and perhaps to fork off subarticles. Preparatory to such discussions, I always like to ask other Wikipedians what sources they have found that are especially informative about the article topic(s). I am still, weeks after beginning, in the process of compiling a source list on human intelligence research for editing the several articles on Wikipedia that pertain to IQ testing and related issues. Most of those articles could use a good bit of editing, on the basis of better sources, and I invite Wikipedians to suggest to me improvements for that source list. But how about another source list? A source list pertaining more specifically to "race" and what race is and is not would be helpful for several existing articles and for any new articles that develop as subarticles or see also articles from those. If no one objects, I could host that source list on my user space just I plan to host a few other source lists. With that in mind, what sources on the topic(s) of this article do all of you recommend? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I will renew my call here for a jointly maintained source list. Of course any of us can mine the existing sources cited in the article to get that started. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the lead

I edited the intro one more time for clarity and to adequately represent both sides of the discussion. I believe it to be concise and to the point. If you ask me I think that the intro is fairly solid at this point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adhan24 (talk • contribs) 23:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we should not revert each other's changes, but it should be noted that according to both geneticists and scholarly literature in anthropology that the term "race" is problematic and a point of contention. Both views, those of physical anthropologists and of modern geneticists, should be encapsulated in the lead-in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adhan24 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Rather than just continuing to revert each other's changes to this section, I think we ought to discuss them here. I have two problems with Mathsci's version of it:

1: As I pointed out in one of my edit summaries, this wording implies that physical anthropologists are the only people who still think race is a useful idea. That isn't the case; they're only one example of it. The other major example is in medicine, as is clear from the papers I cited about this from the New England Journal of Medicine. We can make a general statement that race can still be useful in some contexts, and then present George Gill's view as an example of this; or we can explain in detail how it's useful in both physical anthropology and medicine. What we can't do is just say that it's still used in physical anthropology, and not mention any of the other areas where it's used also.

2: Stating "Many physical anthropologists however, have been reluctant to abandon the use of the term 'race'" is clearly slanted towards the idea that physical anthropologists are "behind the times" in this respect. More than any other part of the article, the lead needs to be neutrally worded: after presenting the view that race has no basis in biology, we need to present the alternative view without hinting that there's something wrong with it.

As I'm sure both of you are aware, the version that I reverted to is the state that the article has been in for the past year. As far as I know, up to this point nobody had a problem with it. Even more than in the race and intelligence article, I think this is clearly a situation where if we're not able to come to an agreement, the default state of this part of the article needs to be the one that it was in before any of these recent changes were made. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:58, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

You can't use stability as an argument against change, its circular logic and its also fundamentally against how wikipedia works. We need to work forward - not stall or work backwards. I could agree to another wording than "reluctant to abandon" and I also wouldn't disagree to adding that other fields also use race. I would like to include that "race can be useful "as a heuristic device" - because that is what those fields use it as since there is overwhelming evidence that race as commonly understood is a folk taxonomy with an negligible basis in biology , but that change would need a quote of cause. Now however the phrase says "race may be useful" this of course needs to be changed to "X and X profession finds that the concept of race may be useful". ·Maunus·ƛ· 07:08, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I've devised a single sentence which I hope is adequate: more would be WP:UNDUE. Mathsci (talk) 07:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Maunus, I approve of your suggestions about how to change the wording of this section. Can you try changing this yourself? I think I’m close to violating 3RR on this article (and so is Mathsci), so I’d rather not revert it again right now. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

This comment seems not to take into account my latest edit. Please don't talk past other editors Captain Occam. The aim is to find an appropriately short and accurate sentence which is not given WP:UNDUE weight. Mathsci (talk) 08:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

My comment is specifically in response to the changes you made. You haven’t changed several of the things that Maunus agreed with changing: the article still uses the phrase “reluctant to abandon”, and it doesn’t say that race is specifically useful to these professions. Since you haven’t changed some of the things that Maunus and I are agreeing should be changed, I’m asking him to change them. It’ll also be acceptable if you’re willing to change them yourself, though. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:09, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Maunus, I approve of the change you’ve made except for one thing: the use of the term “conceptual category” in this context. If you read the papers I was citing from the New England Journal of Medicine, you’ll see that the reason race is useful in a medical setting is because reactions to drugs can differ along the lines of biogeographic ancestry, and race is a crude but effective way to estimate biogeograhic ancestry without requiring expensive genetic testing procedures. I don’t think “conceptual category” is an accurate way to summarize how race is used in this context. Your suggestion of “heuristic device” was better in my opinion, but perhaps you can come up with another way of describing this that’s even more accurate. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you want to go with "heuristic device" untill we find something better for example in quote?·Maunus·ƛ· 09:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I tried changing it myself to something that I think is more precise than either of your two suggestions. Do you think the wording I’ve used is an adequate description? --Captain Occam (talk) 09:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I guess its ok, I think I like heuristic better but I can't currently make a coherent argument why, so lets leave it with "biogeographical ancestry" unless someone else has a better argument.·Maunus·ƛ· 09:19, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the most important point in this discussion is Captain Occam's statement, "We can make a general statement that race can still be useful in some contexts." This is usually correct. In some contexts - e.g. the United States - forensic anthropologists and physicians can often use race as a proxy for genetic ancestry. It is critical that we note that this is not always the case (there have in fact been documented caes of physicians misdiagnosing a patient because they relied on race for genetic information - I do not have citations but they should not be too hard to find. I bring this up not because physicians who rely exclusively on race always or even often get it wrong; in the US they usually get it right. But when they do get it wrong, the consequencs can be really awful). Be that as it may, it is often the case in specific contexts. It is not the case in Brazil, which has a completely different racial system, and races are constructed differently. Blacks in the US are largely descended from people from one region in Africa. Genetic assumptions about US black do not easily transport to Africa, which has a genetically more diverse popultion (or, many more populations, all of whom we might call "black" but which are genetically different). So they key point is "some contexts." As long as we are very clear about why this is so and why it is important, we are okay. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I have inserted in "specific instances", because this seems to match the cases best ("proxy for genetic ancestry" as Slr points out is correct but a clumsy phrase). In the lede there's no need to go into detail, because it is after all a summary of what should be in the main article. Biomedicine is discussed in the main text, as is forensic anthropology. I don't quite know why there should be different sources for the lede and the main article. That should be sorted out. In fact I don't see why citations are really needed in the lede. Mathsci (talk) 12:18, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam's modification to the sentence was a useful improvement, suitably neutral. However, David.Kane removed a lot material is a summary of what is discussed in the rest of the article, so there's no reason to remove. Mathsci (talk) 14:23, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I made this series of changes to the lead [4]. MathSci reverted them. I agree that the lead should summarize the article. I agree that this lead is a mess. My only claim is that my edits make the lead better than it was before. I did not expect that they would be controversial. What specific aspects does anyone object to? Much of it was just cleaning up the writing, better grammar, et cetera. David.Kane (talk) 14:48, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't question your intentions, David; I went over your version and I think it was accurate. The problem is, in my view, that you cut essential context. For example, while you rightly left in that most scientists study genotypic variation in terms of clinal variation and populations, you cut the reason why. Now, articles on simpler topics are shorter, and have shorter leads. But this is not true of all Wikipedia articles. Articles on controversial topics are often longer, and have longer introductions. It is important to provide as thorough a summary as possible, because some people read only the introduction. Also, with controversial topics, different readers bring their own biases or preconceptions and can easily misread the lead, or think it violates NPOV. What happens then is over time diferent editors just add to the introduction more and more points of view. The fact is, the current lead is for the most part something that many very experienced editors worked hard on, to make sure it was accurate and NPOV and as short as possible. I think cutting anything would (with one exception) be counter-productive - many readers will not understand why most biologists don't use race or if they do, many readers will think tscientists use race to mean the same thing most people do, and the introduction has to be vey clear about this. I made one edit which I do hope is utterly uncontrovesial, there was some sloppy duplication between the first and second paragraphs and I revised both to make it clear that they are on different things (the first paragraph as a general intro, the second on why it is controversial). Here is the one exception concerning cuts. Like some other editors, I actually do think the current last paragraph of the intro can be cut completely. The article should have links and "see alsos" to racism and genocide, which is what that paragraph is really about, but these are too removed from the fundamental question of whether people agree races exist and if they do what they are. I di dnot cut it but am just voicing my view that it should be cut. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the last paragraph could be cut.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

So do I. Let’s get rid of it. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

"Getting rid of" verifiable, notable and historical facts relating to the topic is not what Wikipedia is about. It might be easy to reach consensus on "Your Concept Of Race as classification of human beings" – too bad the historians and publishers of the University of Cambridge do not agree with you. Would you write an article on automobiles without mentioning T-Ford and article on space travel without Laika? --Casimirpo (talk) 13:43, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Casimir, don't overreact here. We agree, at least I and Slrubenstein have expressed this here, that mentioning Racism and its role in genocides is relevant and important. It should obviously figure in this article. We are discussing the particular paragraph as it is written in the lead. When we advance with the article I for one would find it natural to have a section on the relation of the concept of race to genocide and racism, and when there is such a section per WP:LEAD we will have to include a summary of that sectino in the lead. It is nont a question about whether Racism and genocide belongs in the article, only about us not being satisfied by the way it is currently done.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Very well – the lead should include the most notable, verifiable historical events that some (ill-defined) concepts of race helped to fuel in nearby history. There is lot of less notable blah-blah and disagreed claims in the lead at the moment. Plus, at the end of the lead the context was proper for bringing in historical perspective, bridging from lead to the history-section. JMO. --Casimirpo (talk) 16:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Reckless move

The article was just moved without discussion from Race (classification of human beings) to Race (classification of humans). For such a prominent and controversial article this isn't a change that can be done lightly and without discussion. The title "Race (classification of humans)" has a racist tone, is more dehumanizing than the previous one, and has an Auschwitz-like sistematicity. It makes the concept "race" sound more formal and credible, while it is pseudoscience. In fact, I would be in favor of a title like Race (pseudoscience).--Sum (talk) 09:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The move appears tolerable in view of the main Wikipedia article being titled Human rather than Human being. (The latter term redirects to the article titled by the single word.) We have saved a few characters in the article title with little definite change of meaning. I just checked what pages link to this article--quite a few, with many different redirect pages--and what was done here by the move (rename) looks all right. To be a good redirect target for all the wikilinks that lead here, this article will have to remain broad and interdisciplinary in scope. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:58, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's basically my view (I was the one who moved the article). "Humans" is used far more often than "human beings," so my move simply made the title shorter (a clear improvement) without losing any information. I didn't even make a major change to the title—for example, I think "Race (human)" would be an even better title, but I don't want to move the page again because I think the current title is good enough and because I don't want to cause more controversy. I definitely didn't expect my action to provoke such a large reaction. 67.170.81.80 (talk) 03:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Err, sorry, the above post was made by me. Eyu100^{(t|fr|Version 1.0 Editorial Team)} 03:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's face it, the title was awkward, and it is still awkward. But the move was actually an improvement. The point of racial categorization is grouping human populations, not individuals. Sure, it can be and has been used to classify individuals, but that's secondary.

The "classification of human beings" thing in the title is little more than arguing by article title. A more proper disambiguation might be "race (human populations)" or similar. SummerWithMorons, your instant-Godwining of this (come on, you referred to Auschwitz without any provocation whatsoevecr in the second sentence of your first post. Can you get any more uptight about the topic?) is an excellent illustration that the current title is the result of entirely too much discussion, and discussion among the wrong people for the wrong reasons at that. You apparently just want a title to reflect your opinion that "it is pseudoscience". This is an extremely poor approach to WP:NAME. A real discussion would just look into how other tertiary sources handle this without the obsessing over "omg racist tone dehumanizing Auschwitz pseudoscience". --dab (𒁳) 09:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

on second thoughts, I think it will spare us much grief if we just move the article to racial group and be done, after all the term is bold in the lead and it is perfectly unambiguous. We just need disambiguation because of the unrelated race-as-in-racing, and because of the related race (biology). We could just place it at race (anthropology) and be done, but then people like Summer above will rant about how it is really pseudoscience, not 'real' anthropology. Racial group has none of these problems and is just an unambiguous title for what the article is supposed to discuss. --dab (𒁳) 12:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I have some qualms with race (human groups). But I think dab's other proposal is spot-on. We have race (biology) for flora and fauna, so I think race (anthropology) for humans is actually a very good and constructive suggestion. As to anyone who might say that is pseudoscience, well, they are in the same fringe as people who say Einstein was wrong about relativity. Every major university in North America, Australia and Europe, and most major universities in the other three populated continents, has an anthropology department. So the claim that it is pseudoscience is not worth taking seriously. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a title Race (anthropology) could also be workable. (I'm not advocating another change so soon after the last change.) Particularly because there is another article titled Race (biology), the parallelism of titles would announce what this article is about, as any educated person knows that the subject matter of the discipline of anthropology is human beings, by etymology of the name of the discipline. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No, Race (anthropology) would be a bad title because it would imply that the article is focused on the views of anthropologists alone. For example, would the views of a geneticist belong in such an article? Not by its title. (Of course, there would be nothing wrong with having an article which covered just the views of anthropologists on race, but this article is, obviously, intended to be much broader.) I think that, on the whole, the new name is better than the old name. But I could also imagine a better name, perhaps in conjunction with a rationalization that connected this article with Human genetic clustering and Human genetic variation as discussed in the Pruning shears discussion above? David.Kane (talk) 16:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

• How about moving this to a more neutral title, such as Human races (currently a redirect)? I noticed that we do not even have a Category:Human races. But we probably should have it.Biophys (talk) 14:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The article was once titled Race (anthropology) before the name was changed to race (classification of human beings). Despite the clumsy name, I think it is the most neutral. The problem with "human races" is that it implies that races are real when this suggestion is disputed. Looking at the definition from online dictionary, race could simply mean any classification of humans, including a "race of journalists". Wapondaponda (talk) 16:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. Maybe the best way is to think of this article as a daughter article to human? We could then have human (races), human (genetic variation), human (genetic clustering) and so on. Just thinking out loud . . . David.Kane (talk) 16:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The focus of the article shouldn't be on describing particular races as articles such as black people or white people already exist. Rather the focus should be on describing the criteria used for classification, including the objectivity or lack of objectivity of such criteria. This is why I support the current title. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

So, the races are real since we have already black people, white people and this article. At the very least, they are real as valid encyclopedic subjects. Therefore, moving this to Human races should not be a problem.Biophys (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, nobody disputes that races are real social constructs. The problem with "human races" is that it implies a list of races, rather than a discussion of classification or taxonomy. Such a discussion will provide the necessary background to the existence of these socially defined groups, and will also discuss the various controversies associated with race. Wapondaponda (talk) 23:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

@David Kane: "anthropology" is "the study of human beings." The reason for the disambiguation is that botanists and zoologists (according to some of our editors, at least) use the word race diferently from anthropologists i.e. people who study dogs and bananas use the word race diferently from those studying humans. Now, we can have a Race(plants and animals) and Race(human beings) naming the object studied, or you can have a Race(biology) and a Race(anthropology) naming the academic discipline that does the study. Do you object to the article on rocks taking the view of geologists? Do you object to the article on galaxies taking the viw of astronomers? But I have no objction, keeping this race(human beings). My point is that when thinking about the nam of the article, we need to look at all the articles on the disambiguation page. The words in the parentheses are there to aid in the disambiguation, and whatever words we put in parentheses, we should be consistent in the way we choose them. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:23, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course one could create articles Race(biology) and a Race(anthropology), but in that case one must provide clear definitions what race means in biology and what race means in anthropology (if you believe that anthropology does not belong to biology?). The definitions must be supported by reliable sources and indeed be different definitions. Do you really mean that "anthropological" definition of race should sound like this: "near-uniform groups of individuals that can be identified by a few externally visible traits such as skin color", because that is what has been rejected (sic!) by the anthropologists? Biophys (talk) 18:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Race (biology) versus subspecies

This has been debated already, but once again, term "race" does not appear in biological taxonomy. The lowest official unit of the taxonomy is "subspecies", and that is what the codes of nomenclature tell (please check International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, here or here). Term "race" appears in evolutionary population genetics essentially as a synonym of highly divergent populations (frequently as "geographic race" or "ecological race"). To deny the existence of races in biological sense is like to deny the existence of distinct (divergent) populations. Someone just quoted this publication. It tells (box#1, point 1, page S18):

Modern human biological variation is not structured into phylogenetic subspecies ('races'), nor are the taxa of the standard anthropological 'racial' classifications breeding populations. The 'racial taxa' do not meet the phylogenetic criteria.

Thus, authors mistakenly equate subspecies to 'races' (not so because race does not appear in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, only subspecies do, and the corresponding ternary names with subspecies are widely used and commonly accepted, even for bacteria), but they make a correct conclusion that human races are not taxonomical categories. Of course they are not, and no one ever claimed them to be such. But races do exist as divergent human populations.Biophys (talk) 22:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, exactly what sources do you have at hand as you make these edits? My concern is that sourced information was in the article before your recent edits that seems to have vanished. Exactly which sources are you looking at, and what about the sources for the passages being deleted? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I mostly deleted a few duplications of text. If something important is missing, please add it to the last(current) version of page. I checked a few sources currently quoted in this article prior to making changes.Biophys (talk) 23:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Cherry picking in the lede?

The statement "Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups, where those groups are defined in terms of linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries" chosen from [5], as a prelude to a however, under the heading: "Statement 2: We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population." mikemikev (talk) 18:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I used another source, but if you would like to include the additional statement (2), please do.Biophys (talk) 18:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Paragraph in the lead

According to biological studies, all human populations derive from a common ancestral group. There is also a greater amount of genetic diversity within regional human populations[21], with the geographic pattern of variation between these groups presenting less discontinuity in genes. This disproves the antiquated understanding of races as almost uniform groups of people that can be identified by a few visible traits[22]. Therefore other scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, biology, and genetics prefer to group shared traits along ethnic lines which correspond to a history of endogamy. [23][24][16]

According to biological studies, all human populations derive from a common ancestral group.

All living-things derive from a common ancestral group. So what?

There is also a greater amount of genetic diversity within regional human populations[21]

This is cherry picked, see above. It doesn't even make sense. "A greater amount of genetic diversity within regional human populations" than what? The fact that "two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population" is a more relevant fact, and a fact this sentence appears to be attempting to obscure.

with the geographic pattern of variation between these groups presenting less discontinuity in genes.

This doesn't make sense. "Less discontiniuity" than what?

This disproves the antiquated understanding of races as almost uniform groups of people that can be identified by a few visible traits.

While I agree that racial groups are not uniform (who thinks that?) this synth nonsense proves or disproves nothing. This sentence is sourced to P. Aspinall's Language matters: the vocabulary of racism in health care. Is that appropriate?

Therefore other scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, biology, and genetics prefer to group shared traits along ethnic lines which correspond to a history of endogamy.

Sourced to Loring Brace, who misses the wood for the trees in failing to see that taxonomic significance is a product of trait correlation, as do the AAA (a quasi-political body) in their endless parroting of Lewontin's fallacy. I find it hard to see how this complies with NPOV. Additionally the sentence is not supported by the sources.

Am I missing something? mikemikev (talk) 03:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not object any changes. It seems that the dispute is mostly about the politically correct terminology. Nothing will change if one replaces word "races" by "human populations" or "ethnic groups". Can they be distinguished genetically? Yes, certainly. Right? Does it mean "racism"? No, until someone makes a judgment that one ethnic group is better than another.Biophys (talk) 16:03, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

In zoology, mainstream opinion equates "race" with "subspecies" (see here as a good example). However, mainstream thought also recognizes that there isn't enough genetic diversity within the human species to form distinct subspecies, i.e. races. This is where Lewontin comes in: while about 85% of genetic variation present within the human species occurs within population groups, differences between population groups (the "classical races" for example) only accounts for 1-15% of the total genetic diversity of the human species. There are also dozens if not hundreds of excellent secondary sources which say that the "classical races" are in fact a social construct rather than a biological one, much less a "valid biological construct".--Ramdrake (talk) 17:55, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be making this up. Your reference for "mainstream opinion" is a WP article about cats. Is it a joke? Even if the between group difference was 1%, or 0.0001%, if it was observable and informative we would give it a name. The name we give it is "race", and in this sense it is not synonymous with subspecies. Now if it has no biological validity, why would it be a factor in medical indication (using terms 'black' and 'white'). What is the 85% within group variation anyway? Is it junk DNA? Do you have any idea? Why would this affect classification? Making stuff up. I intend to rewrite this paragraph. mikemikev (talk) 19:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Re to Ramdrake: Please see my explanation above. As Ernst W. Mayr said, "a subspecies is a geographic race that is sufficiently different taxonomically to be worthy of a separate name" [6]. Here, we talk about geographic races or populations that are taxonomically not worthy of a separate name. Nothing more, nothing less. All geographically isolated populations, which came from the same ancestor population, are genetically different and can be identified as such, no matter if they are people or animals. I can agree that there are some "classical races" (what it means? please provide definition!) which are in fact social constructs, but this has nothing to do with biology.Biophys (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not think you know what "social construct" means. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, we can console ourselves with the thought that we know what "objective reality" means. mikemikev (talk) 20:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Re to Slrubenstein. Ramdrake and Mikemikev talked about Genetic divergence, not about social constructs. The "Genetic divergence" article correctly tells that "Genetic divergence will always accompany reproductive isolation, either due to novel adaptations or due to genetic drift, and is the principle mechanism underlying speciation." Are you disputing this? Biophys (talk) 20:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Nope. But this is precisely why race doesn't apply to humans. Humans occupy enough different geographic niches so that there are differences in gene frequencies among groups, but these groups are never clearly bounded. Unlike Darwin's finches, no human population has been genetically isolated long enough to diverge to any great degree. Take babies born in Ecuatorial rainforests and the Arctic, and switch them - they will adapt and survive in their new niches. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. If you mean that there are no genetically divergent human populations (do you?), this is disputing the basics of population genetics when they apply to human populations. Such views belong HERE. "Switch babies...". Switch tiger and leopard. That's not an argument. Biophys (talk) 15:54, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe you are confusing clustering with divergence. aprock (talk) 16:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I talk about divergence of populations as basic evolution units, and others probably talk about clusters. This baby-switching argument reminds me scifi satire about aliens who switched two mothers by moving them from their own family to family of another women who lived in a remote location. After being surprised, each women realized where she was, fed children from another family and then moved back to her home town. The conclusion from a scientific study by the aliens: humans can not recognize their own children (otherwise, why would they fed children from another family), but they are territorial animals (moved back). Just kidding. The talk is becoming too tense.Biophys (talk) 22:59, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I think Biophys is thinking along the right lines: i.e. current scientific thinking rather than Neo-Lysenkoist rhetoric. Nobody thinks races are clearly bounded. Nobody thinks races are "diverged to a great degree" (where's the reference point there anyway?). But why then assert that "race does not apply to humans". It does not follow. mikemikev (talk) 09:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Just curious as to what we accept as isolation and long periods. I would think there are differences in physiques which make the equatorial baby and Arctic baby each more suited to their own environment, certainly the two populations they come from have been separated for a very long time. Whether the differences are race or merely adaptation is a different topic. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. A Maasai baby would have big problems in the Arctic. mikemikev (talk) 11:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Statement of Cavalli-Sforza et al misrepresented

These authors make the following statements:

1. We believe that there is no scientific basis for any claim that the pattern of human genetic variation supports hierarchically organized categories of race and ethnicity
2. We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population
3. We urge those who use genetic information to reconstruct an individual’s geographic ancestry to present results within the broader context of an individual’s overall ancestry
4. We recognize that racial and ethnic categories are created and maintained within sociopolitical contexts and have shifted in meaning over time
5. We caution against making the naive leap to a genetic explanation for group differences in complex traits, especially for human behavioral traits such as IQ scores, tendency towards violence, and degree of athleticism
6. We encourage all researchers who use racial or ethnic categories to describe how individual samples are assigned category labels, to explain why samples with such labels were included in the study, and to state whether the racial or ethnic categories are research variables
7. We discourage the use of race as a proxy for biological similarity and support efforts to minimize the use of the categories of race and ethnicity in clinical medicine, maintaining focus on the individual rather than the group
8. We encourage the funding of interdisciplinary study of human genetic variation that includes a broad range of experts in the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences
9. We urge researchers, those working in media, and others engaged in the translation of research results to collaborate on efforts to avoid overstatement of the contribution of genetic variation to phenotypic variation
10. We recommend that the teaching of

genetics include historical and social scientific information on past uses of science to promote racism as well as the potential impact of future policies; we encourage increased funding for the development of such teaching materials and programs for secondary and undergraduate education

In his multiply reverted edit Mikemikev stated finding number 2 and concluded, using another source (Dawkins): "Therefore, "race", when applied to humans, is of genetic and taxonomic significance." Perhaps Mikemikev could explain why he chose to misrepresent Cavalli-Sforza et al in this way. Mathsci (talk) 23:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it's also worth mentioning that's he's misrepresenting Dawkins as well. aprock (talk) 01:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You do realise that you're now adding meaningless nonsense to WP? Why didn't you address my points? I haven't misrepesented anyone, I used almost direct quotes. This is disruptive. mikemikev (talk) 04:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

"“Race” is not a clearly defined word." That quote is from your Dawkins citation. The idea that you would cite Dawkins to support what you inserted is fantastic. aprock (talk) 06:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

What I wrote was almost a direct quotation. You're basically saying that my source doesn't support itself, based on your own strange idea that things have to be defined with infinite precision to be of significance. mikemikev (talk) 07:16, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The word "therefore" has no meaning as used in Mikemikev's concatenation of two phrases for the lede. As quoted by Richard Dawkins (p 406-407), Richard Lewontin made the statement, "Human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of human and social relations. Since such racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance either, no justification can be used for its continuance." Dawkins discusses at length Lewontin's 1972 statement in his popular science book, but again he never makes the statement that Mikemikev has written. In fact, while personally disagreeing with it, Dawkins precedes this quote and a previous longer one from Lewontin with the statement, "Lewontin's view of race has become near-universal orthodoxy in scientific circles." Mikemikev does not seem to have used a direct quote from Dawkins. If Mikemikev is trying to paraphrase a personal statement of Dawkins, then he should give a precise quote with attribution and the pages on which that quote appears. In any event it cannot possibly be used in the lede if it is just Dawkins' personal opinion. Could Mikemikev please clarify himself? Mathsci (talk) 09:12, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm astonished that Mathsci has the audacity to expect a response to his ill-informed query. Perhaps Mathsci could address the more pressing issue of the huge logical holes in his train-wreck of an insertion above, before we discuss my use of the word 'therefore' (which I can justify) and the page number of the quote (which I can provide, are we looking at different editions Mathsci?). mikemikev (talk) 09:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I have the book in front of me. By all means cite the page number. aprock (talk) 14:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Responding to [7] in the appropriate place ...

If you read the entire section, instead of cherry picking quotes, you'll see that Dawkin's is specifically discussing whether or not you might infer qualities like hair color, etc. From page 410 of the hardcover (about three pages later). Inter-observer agreement suggests that racial classification is not totally uninformative, but what does it inform about? About no more than the characteristics used by the observers when they agree: things like eye shape and hair curliness - nothing more unless we are given further reasons to believe it. For some reason it seems to be the superficial, external, trivial characteristics which are correlated iwth race - perhaps especially facial characteristics. With respect to his "refutation" of Lewontin's fallacy, it's mostly about what the word virtually means. The idea that such a fine point be presented in the lead as an absolute refutation is synthesis. In fact, you will find that Dawkin's agrees that Lewontin's view is mainstream. From a half a page before your selected quote: Lewontin's view of race has become near-universal orthodoxy in scientific circles. aprock (talk) 19:08, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course I read the section. The part I quoted is about genetic variation, the part you quoted is about observable traits.

The lead currently presents Lewontin's fallacy as fact. If you prefer we can use Edwards' paper as a source.

And no, the argument that there is 15% genetic variation between groups, therefore race is of no taxonomic sigficance is simply flawed, virtually or otherwise. mikemikev (talk) 20:18, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

It's clear that Dawkins is well aware that that particular view is not mainstream. aprock (talk) 20:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, you can be sure that the word 'orthodoxy' from Dawkins isn't approving. It's been 7 years since Edwards released his paper, I would imagine most are familiar with the fallacy by now. But are you actually suggesting that we present Lewontin's fallacy as mainstream? mikemikev (talk) 20:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting anything beyond the fact that you are misrepresenting Dawkins. aprock (talk) 20:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Ridiculous. mikemikev (talk) 21:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have gone out of your way deliberately to misrepresent two sources. Why did you do that? Mathsci (talk) 23:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci misrepresented Sforza.

His edit was from: Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups

The full statement: Statement 2: We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population

Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups, where those groups are defined in terms of linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries [3,5,13,14] . Patterns of variation, however, are far from random. We recognize that human population history, including major migrations from one continent to another as well as more short-range movements, has led to correlation between genetic variation and geographic distribution [14-17] . This finding is particularly true of indigenous peoples; populations characterized by a high degree of interaction with neighboring groups adhere less to these patterns.

My edit was from :We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population, which is clearly the intended point.

Why doesn't Mathsci acknowledge this so we can move on? mikemikev (talk) 05:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Cherrypicking from a source as a means of proving the opposite of what is stated there is just disruptive editing. It's what's called misrepresenting the source. Users continually making disruptive edits or suggestions of this kind normally end up having restrictions imposed on their editing privileges. Mathsci (talk) 10:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

(I saw this at that Arbom case here) Mikemikev is BLATANLY misrepresenting the source by cherrypicking the text. This text is against using races as a classification, and at least calling that these classifications are carefully evaluated.

All the places where the source says that using races for complex traits is naive, that current evidence points at environment factors, that science has being used to push racist ideologies, etc.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(Statement 5) We caution against making the naive leap to a genetic explanation for group differences in complex traits, especially for human behavioral traits such as IQ scores, tendency towards violence, and degree of athleticism Among the most pervasive and pernicious claims of genetically determined traits are theories on the racial ordering of intelligence [21,22] . Despite the weak scientific basis for such ordering, the consistent return to the rhetoric of racial hierarchies of IQ reflects the powerful role that science has historically played in promoting racist ideologies [23] . Current evidence suggests that for most complex behavioral traits, contribution of any one gene to normal variation is small and these traits may be more fully explained by variation in environmental factors. We therefore caution against making the naive leap to a genetic explanation for group differences in a complex behavioral trait, where environmental and social factors clearly can and do play major roles [24,25] . (Statement 7): We discourage the use of race as a proxy for biological similarity and support efforts to minimize the use of the categories of race and ethnicity in clinical medicine, maintaining focus on the individual rather than the group. Overemphasizing the genetic contribution to complex human disease or behavioral traits can promote not only racism, but also a naive genetic essentialism - the notion that genes determine health status or behavior [28-30] (Statement 9): We urge researchers, those working in media, and others engaged in the translation of research results to collaborate on efforts to avoid overstatement of the contribution of genetic variation to phenotypic variation Scientific data are often quickly politicized and incorporated into specific policy agendas without extensive explanation of the scientific research and its details [33-35] . Often lost in the announcement of scientific findings is discussion of the limitations of the research. Our hope is that scientific data about human genetic variation might undermine spurious popular beliefs about the existence of biologically distinct human races and beliefs that support racist ideologies. (Statement 10): We recommend that the teaching of genetics include historical and social scientific information on past uses of science to promote racism as well as the potential impact of future policies; (in conclusion) History reminds us that science may easily be used to justify racial stereotypes and racist policies. (...) chances that scientific research inadvertently contributes either to inequities between groups or to the abuse of human rights. Disagreements did arise during these discussions. For example, biomedical scientists tended to accept that such labels could be used as neutral descriptors of groups of individuals, whereas scholars in the social sciences and humanities tended to question whether such labels could be stripped of embedded sociohistorical meaning. However, dialog and the discovery of language that worked across disciplinary boundaries enabled us to clarify our perspectives and find many points of agreement. This workshop statement constitutes one step in an ongoing, open dialog that takes into account the potential for misinterpretation or misuse of research in human genetic variation.(...)

--Enric Naval (talk) 11:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll reply with what I wrote in the Arbcom case:

What you need to bear in mind is that my edit was an improvement. If "We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population" was cherry picked, "Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups" was even more cherry picked and out of context. All I was trying to do was bring the article closer to the intended meaning of the source, which I did. What you're doing now is comparing my edit to some perfect imaginary interpretation, and not applying the same standard to Mathsci. This[8][9] edit verges on the embarrassing. I'm trying to engage in dialogue in order to improve it, in order to improve WP, and all I'm getting is pure hostility, nothing constructive. I gave a thorough deconstruction on the talk page, why has nobody responded? I mean, are you all such experts in genetics that what I wrote doesn't deserve a response? Or is the reality that I'm facing the "races only exist as social constructs" club, who feel that their self-assumed moral authority excuses them from any kind of knowledgeable discussion? Proper sourcing does not mean cherry picking statements out of context to synthesize a POV, whether that POV is mainstream or otherwise. mikemikev (talk) 13:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

That is NOT the intended meaning of the source, as anyone who reads beyond the second statement can perfectly see. If you are misrepresenting sources, like you did here, then you can only expect that people complains about your edits. If you keep misrepresenting sources, then of course people will complain even louder. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

You're not addressing the point. I don't claim that my edit was perfect, but it was closer to the wider meaning of the source than what was before. Instead of attacking me, why don't you suggest something better, and/or apply the same criticism to Mathsci and Ramdrake for supporting a worse example of the problem you're referring to. This is a double standard. mikemikev (talk) 12:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Your edit was NOT closer to the meaning of the source. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm prepared to go over this as many times as necessary. You can be as "loud" as you want. This is the statement in question:

"Statement 2: We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups, where those groups are defined in terms of linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries [3,5,13,14] . Patterns of variation, however, are far from random. We recognize that human population history, including major migrations from one continent to another as well as more short-range movements, has led to correlation between genetic variation and geographic distribution [14-17] . This finding is particularly true of indigenous peoples; populations characterized by a high degree of interaction with neighboring groups adhere less to these patterns."

Is the intended meaning of this statement:

A) "Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups."

B) "We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population."

Note especially the however, in "Patterns of variation, however, are far from random." It's quite clear that Sforza wishes to indicate that "Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups" is commonly misconstrued to be of importance, when it actually indicates little.

Whether or not "Mainstream POV" is that "race is not scientific", you need to use a source which reasons to that conclusion from first principles, not randomly pick quotes which in your opinion support that hypothesis.

My use of We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population was closer to the wider meaning of the source than Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups. mikemikev (talk) 09:30, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that your interpretation is at odds with the rest of the document. In one of my posts above, in a collapsable section, I highlighted some of the parts I considered relevant. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you think "We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population" is at odds with the rest of the document, your problem is with Sforza, not me. mikemikev (talk) 13:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll just observe that the quoted sections you provide do not mention race. Using the above quotes, which are about population groups, to make inferences about race is WP:SYNTH. aprock (talk) 14:34, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The seeming "contradiction" between the two statements is easily sorted out if one reads the references cited by Cavalli-Sforza paper. The paper basically sez there are no existing distinct biological races in homo sapiens, but there are culturally defined races. On average, when comparing some site on the genome for any two individuals of different geographical groups we are more likely to see greater genetic variation than when comparing any two individuals of the same geographical group, but only slightly more. "Geologically defined groups" are not the same thing as "biologically defined races". Human genetic variation is not purely random, -- naturally small population groups that are reproductively isolated will be expected to have less genetic variation compared with population groups which have reproductive contacts with other population groups, so there is no surprise to find some correlation between geography and genetic variation. So it's not that there is absolutely no relationship, but mikemikev's is over-emphasizing it exactly as the paper cautions should not be done.

Does anybody else think this lead needs work? One, it quickly fixates on the current biology of race issue, and fails to summarize key points that are covered in most of the rest of the article. And two, all this tweaking has left it a bit confusing. For example, "self-identified race/ethnicity" and "forensic anthropology"? The subjects of forensic anthropology can't "self-identify" anything, right? And I don't understand what the sentence "Race serves to indicate essential types of individuals or fuzzy sets of people's traits" is trying to say". Professor marginalia (talk) 00:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I did over-emphasize it. But it was a nudge in the right direction.

Yes, the lead needs work. "The subjects of forensic anthropology can't "self-identify" anything, right?" Lol, it's just bizarre. Slrubenstein has reinserted Lewontin's fallacy and synthesized an argument from it again also. I've explained this enough I think. I could help fix it, and I'd be happy to cooperate to do that, but I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall. To be frank I'm hoping Arbcom will apply a restriction. We shall see. mikemikev (talk) 10:51, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Your definition about what the right direction would be doesn't qualify, and you're not allowed to slip it into place and disguise it with cites which claim the reverse.

And I don't see how the confusing sentence has anything to do with the Lewontin fallacy either. The words are simply tangled up. Forensic anthropologists use clusters of morphological features to try and come up with reliable assumptions to identify the ancestry of skeletal remains. They will use SIRE in studies testing the reliability of their methods, and then can apply tested methods to subjects that can't self-identify. Professor marginalia (talk) 14:01, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes it qualifies, I've explained how. More?

The connection is Slrubenstein, the common factor in the garbled mess that is this article. Are you sure that your highly dubious insight into the methods of forensic anthropology, even if true, is a notable enough fact to be in the lead? mikemikev (talk) 16:13, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No, your opinion of biological race does not qualify. I'll assume you misunderstood my statement here rather than presume you're defending substituting your own opinions for those made in the reference given. My "highly dubious" insights come from the sources attached to the claim. Do you bother reading the cites, or do you treat them as frivolous baubles we merely attach to claims to give the illusion they are referenced therein? Professor marginalia (talk) 17:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't recall editing my opinion into the article. I recall replacing a misrepresentation of Sforza with what he actually meant. I don't think there is much to understand in your statement, just the usual context free disparagement that you copy paste in when you don't like someone's edit.

Why would I read the cites to know that self-informed race is not a big part of forensics? It's just obvious. Can you reference the place in the cites where this is expressed? mikemikev (talk) 17:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

You did not replace a misrepresentation of Sforza. You infer "race" where it says "geographically defined" populations, and when it comes to whether or not "biological races" exist today in the human species, most agree the measured differences between even "geographically defined" populations are too slim for "geographically defined" human populations to qualify as "biological races". In other words, because the ratio between "similarity" and "difference" weighs so heavily on "similarity", then by the definitions of race which are applied to other biological organisms, the consensus is that human beings today do not descend from nor can be sorted into separate or distinct biological races. (This opinion is shared by Cavalli-Sforza who is a widely cited reference for published analyses of F_st statistics and genetic distances between such populations). You can't quote mine Cavalli-Sforza et al to cherry pick a statement which implies they're confirming race in human beings as biological-the text clearly does not. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:09, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I will be happy to discuss this, but just for future reference, can you clear up whether or not the cites support the use of SIRE or something similar in forensic anthropology? mikemikev (talk) 18:20, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No? OK.

I know some people don't agree that the differences are too slim for geographically defined human populations to qualify as biological races, because F_st statistics are calculated using mainly neutral loci, which have no bearing on the phenotype, and haven't been subject to selection. Basically, we all share pretty similar junk DNA. So what? The simple fact is that we just don't know yet. mikemikev (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

But actually I'm getting your point about inferring "race" where it says "geographically defined" populations. This would also mean the phrase "There is a greater amount of genetic diversity within regional human populations than between those groups" is irrelevant, right? mikemikev (talk) 19:01, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

"In his article about nonmetric skull racing, Rhine designed a study to test the various methods that had until then been in use by members of the Mountain, Desert and Coastal group of forensic scientists. He gathered a list of morphological traits (blah blah) then documented their occurrence in 87 skulls of "known race" (blah blah) Rhine never explains how the race of the individuals in the sample became known but one is led to believe that it was either self-reported or attribution based on soft-tissue appearance shortly after death." Self-identification or self-reported specimens are available for study when bodies are donated to science after death.

And no, it isn't irrelevant that the genetic diversity is small. From another of Cavalli-Sforza's papers, he lays out that using standards biologists typically apply to all other populations of organisms, the diversity is too small (it's approx half the necessary threshold) for "race" to have taxonomic significance in biology. Professor marginalia (talk) 19:52, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

There's no official arbitrary threshold. How could there be when we don't understand what most of the genome is doing? Taxonomy is flexible. mikemikev (talk) 19:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, they have set some standard criteria, for example an F_st statistic of at least .25 (see the article's section "Subspecies genetically differentiated populations"). Oh, what fools these experts be. But ours is not to reason why. So maybe instead of superimposing what the experts should be concluding with our own hypotheses about where to draw these lines, we should just accept that, fools though they may be, wikipedia's rules require us to remember how insignificant our opinion about the topic is here. Their opinions count. Ours don't. Professor marginalia (talk) 20:33, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's just my incidental opinion. I apologize for using WP as a WP:FORUM. You brought up F_st anyway. But I think we agree that both versions of the quote are undesirable, since they talk about "geographically defined" populations. So I removed it. mikemikev (talk) 20:52, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Restoring a much earlier version of the lede

This is not the way wikipedia is edited and displays an unhelpful cavalier attitude to other editors. In the present case Mikemikev has been been editing disruptively. David.Kane is not a disinterested party, since he has supported disruptive edits of Mikemikev elsewhere and his personal view that race is a biological attribute is also on record. Wikipedia is edited in a cumulative incremental step-by-step manner, not by a single user declaring themselves as some kind of arbiter on a preferred version. That is a waste of everybody's time and an irresponsible act not justified by any of wikipedia core editing policies. Mathsci (talk) 20:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Which specific aspects of my edit do you find incorrect? Please seek consensus on controversial changes rather than defending them reflexively. Better: Please allow other editors to chime in with their opinions. And, for clarification, a month ago is not "much earlier." (And, for the record, I find that version of the lead to be problematic at well.) David.Kane (talk) 20:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Mathsci. Everyone, let's work with last version and do minor improvements. I suggest for David.Kane to self-revert. People, you edit war during standing Arbcom case.Biophys (talk) 21:04, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Biophys's very wise suggestion. Please, David.Kane, could you self-revert? Mathsci (talk) 21:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Apologies. I was away from Wikipedia for day. In any event, Aprock has reverted. I will look at the specific issues involved later. David.Kane (talk) 19:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The version that David.Kane reverted to was supported by consensus for around two months. It was the outcome of this discussion in May, and wasn’t changed at all until July. If there hasn’t been any consensus for subsequent changes to the lead since this version—and that seems to be the case—reverting to the last version that had a clear consensus seems like a reasonable thing to do.

This doesn’t mean the version David.Kane reverted to has to be something we stick with in the long run, but before making any significant changes to it we ought to discuss them and obtain consensus for them. So far, that hasn’t happened yet. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Neither David.Kane nor you have engaged in discussion on this, and the default position at wikipedia isn't "article lockdown until mikemikev is satisfied". Care to explain why you'd defend holding this page in lock up until mikemikev gives his consent to changes? Professor marginalia (talk) 04:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

“Neither David.Kane nor you have engaged in discussion on this”

Yes, we have, and I linked to where we discussed it in my previous comment. The discussion which resulted in the version that David.Kane reverted to occurred from May 15th to May 20th, and the resulting version of the lead went unchallenged for two months.

If you look at the article edit history, you’ll see that the way the recent conflict over the lead started was that Biophys made several large changes to the lead without discussing them first. There was nothing wrong with him doing that—it’s just being bold—but it also meant that someone who disagreed with his edits might end up reverting them. What happened instead was that Adhan24 made several more large changes to the lead, still without discussing them. Finally, Mikemikev modified the lead a third time, resulting in his edit war with Ramdrake.

The underlying problem here is that there was never a consensus for Biophys’s and Adhan24’s changes to the lead in the first place. These changes have apparently resulted in an inherently unstable state for the lead, which had previously been stable for two months. What David.Kane has done is basically just a delayed BRD response: reverting all of the recent non-consensus changes to the last version of the lead which had consensus, and then stating that these changes ought to be discussed before they’re added back, presumably starting with the changes from Biophys and Adhan24. Since he’s reverted all of Mikemikev’s recent edits in the process, I don’t see how you think this is the same thing as taking Mikemikev’s side here. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

((Two handed face palms)).............Because the only parties locked in paralyzing stand-offs in any of these intervening months of editing are mikemikev and those objecting to his edits. Delayed BRD? That's an understatement, to be sure ... extremely delayed, since David.Kane's reverted twice within the space of days unwinding months of edits (he's only claimed one month, while you say two) but has yet at any point in these past two months to discuss any one of the intervening edits he's reverted. Nor have you discussed any of it substantively. G-A-M-E. Professor marginalia (talk) 07:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Is it such a surprise that we haven’t contested any of Biophys’ and Adhan24’s changes until recently? Until the recent edit war between Mikemikev and Ramdrake, there was no evidence that these changes had resulted in any amount of instability, but at this point there is. The problems with both Mikemikev’s and Ramdrake’s preferred versions of the article have also been discussed extensively above, and it’s clear that neither version has consensus. The fact that we didn’t participate in this discussion isn’t no reason to avoid returning the article to the most recent consensus version.

Also, claiming that David.Kane undid “months of edits” is wrong, and you’ll see that if you look at the edit history. The version of the lead to which he reverted existed for two month, but it wasn’t modified until July 15th.

Like it or not, undoing a large number of changes which didn’t have consensus is a fairly common thing to do, even if it’s done by someone who didn’t discuss those edits when they were first made. Mathsci and Ramdrake have both done this on other articles, and argued that it was a valid thing to do in those cases, so unless they’re going to engage in hypocrisy they would have to feel similarly in this case. In light of your comments about this in the ArbCom case, I also have a hard time believing that your own opposition to this action is rooted in anything other your general opposition to Mikemikev as an editor, and your feeling that David.Kane and I are “taking his side”. If you aren’t willing or able to come up with any content problems with the version that David.Kane reverted to, the procedural issues that you’re complaining about appear to be nothing but WP:JDLI. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Have I spoken of mikemikev, ever, except in regards to the improperly sourced to Dawkins edit in the lead here? I know this is a confusing dispute, one that seems to continue to spread into ever more articles, and I just finished apologizing for a screw-up that I caught myself making. But how was the article "stable" for two months of editing until Ramdrake reverts mikemikev's bogus editing, which you then claim as evidence of "lack of consensus" for the intervening edits by Biophys’s and Adhan24's? My "opposition to this action" is that it's the same kind of flimflam, bluster, mischaracterization and obfuscation that's already wasted hundreds of hours of babysitting. Professor marginalia (talk) 08:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

When I say that the lead section (I’m not talking about the whole article, just the lead) was stable for two months, what I mean is that everyone appeared to be satisfied with it and only minor changes were made to it during that time. Compare this version of the lead from May 16th to this version from July 12th. There have been some minor (and non-contentious) clarifications of the lead’s wording, but that’s all.

And the reason why the changes made by Biophys and Adhan24 didn’t have consensus is just because they weren’t discussed. Consensus can’t exist without discussion. I didn’t have a strong opinion about these changes when they were first made, but since they’ve ignited an edit war over a part of the article that had previously been stable for two months, it seems obvious to me (and apparently also to David.Kane) that these changes shouldn’t be included in the article until there’s a consensus for them. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Re to Captain. No, I do not have any serious objections to edits by Adhan24 [10]. We had consensus with him. But I object to edit by Davit.Kate, mostly because it was revert to an old version. If he wants to gradually improve article by staring from the last version, I have absolutely no objections. A consensus can exist without discussion, simply by default (that is if no one objects).Biophys (talk) 16:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's tell this differently. I am totally uninvolved and never edited these articles. I made a few non-controversial edits to NPOV the introduction (this version [11], 2nd and 3rd paragraphs). Second paragraphs tells that races do exist in biological sense. Third paragraph tells that the popular understanding of races as almost uniform groups of people is misconception. This provides some balance. Adhan24 decided to modify this version, although in a POVish fashion, and another editor added some refs. This is fine. Now it's my turn to modify something. But reverts to an older version force me to leave this article, because being involved in confrontations is something I can not afford.Biophys (talk) 17:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

If a consensus exists by default when nobody objects to a change, then something is seriously wrong with the way Mathsci and Ramdrake have handled the editing of these articles. There have been examples of both of them deleting content that had been in articles for several months, without any consensus (and sometimes no discussion) about removing it, and the justification they’ve provided for doing this was the assertion that there had not originally been a consensus for it when it was first added. Both of them argued so vigorously that this is the standard way of handling situations like these that I’ve assumed that it is. Was I wrong to assume that?

Race and intelligence is the only article I’ve been involved in that’s controversial enough that anybody would even consider reverting this many changes at once, so the only thing I can use as a my basis for understanding of what’s “normal” in this respect is how I’ve seen it handled on these articles. If I’m wrong about this and what Mathsci and Ramdrake have been doing isn’t normal, I’d appreciate you letting me know how situations like this are supposed to be handled. In this case, when Ramdrake reverted around two months of changes with the justification that there hadn’t been a consensus for them, some of the content that he removed still hasn’t been added back to the article since then. If this wasn’t a valid thing for him to do, is there anything that ought to be done about the long-term effects it’s had on the article?

I mentioned before that I don’t have a strong opinion in terms of content about the changes that you made, nor do I think you did anything wrong by making them. As I said, you were just being bold. What matters to me is just that the lead be in a state that’s supported by enough of a consensus that there won’t be edit warring over it. If it can be stable with the most recent changes from Aprock, David.Kane and Enric Naval, then I’ll be fine with letting it stay in that state going forward, as long as it can be kept in a state that’s consistent with NPOV. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

<= Since I've only made 13 edits to the article, two of those in July and the rest in May, it's very hard to make any sense of what Captain Occam has written. Is Captain Occam expressing his approval of Mikemikev's edits? What else is he suggesting was deleted? As far as I am aware, I formulated the general statement about physical anthropologists and race-related medicine in the lede, although it has subsequently been slightly modified. Ramdrake and I are different users who both disagreed with the recent disruptive edits of Mikemikev, which were his own sole doing and misrepresented the sources. A whole series of other editors have expressed their agreement here and on the corresponding ArbCom pages. Captain Occam seems uneasy at accepting that. On this talk page he has appeared to support the actions of Maikemikev and David.Kane, both of which were disruptive. Note that David.Kane did not self-revert, despite the request.

Mikemikev's two sentences did not satisfy WP:V and misrepresented both sources, Those sentences have been removed and replaced with something sensible. David.Kane's disruptive rollback did not have the approval of other users: it was reverted by me and Aprock, with the approval of multiple editors. Mathsci (talk) 06:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

When I refer to your and Ramdrake’s editing of “these articles”, I’m referring to more than just this article individually. That should be clear from the fact that the example I provided in Ramdrake’s case involved the Race and intelligence article, not this one.

The rest of your comment doesn’t warrant a response, in my opinion. There’s nothing to be gained from my re-explaining what I’ve just explained to Marginalia in the comments above, and it appears to be a moot point now anyway. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

This is not a reasonable response. Please keep your reponses to edits to this article. Otherwise you are simply wasting time. I hardly edit any of these articles now, unlike you. Mathsci (talk) 11:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Aspinall

If this "rollback" is reverted, a second look should be given to the claim "This disproves the antiquated understanding of races as almost uniform groups of people that can be identified by a few visible traits" sourced to Aspinall. Maybe I'm just missing it, but I can't find this discussed in the text--the article seems to me to be devoted to discontinuing antiquated terminology, such as "Negro", "Oriental" etc. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I will remove this sentence. David.Kane (talk) 19:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Hum, I had the nagging feeling that this was leaving a gap in that paragraph. I moved Cavalli-Sforza to source the "less discontinuity between groups" bit. Also from him, I added "and there is no scientific basis for hierarchically organized categories based in race and ethnicity". --Enric Naval (talk) 00:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I am going to try to clean up the lead a bit. Comments, suggestions and requests welcome. I may also take out the pruning shears by moving much of the history material into the various sub articles. Time for some boldness! David.Kane (talk) 19:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Nice one. Before I knew this I removed the most heavily disputed phrase entirely while you were in the middle of it. I'm hoping this will be an acceptable compromise. mikemikev (talk) 19:36, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to find an angle to prune the subspecies section. It needs to be done, but I can't work it out. Will keep thinking. mikemikev (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I think David's last removal of sources from the lede is a move in the right direction.

I see there are still plenty of edits going on here. Just as with the topic of human intelligence (a topic on which I do much of my professional research), for the topic of anthropology, human biology, and race I expect first of all to gather lots of sources in a citations list on my user space, and to hold off on most substantive edits of articles until I have more sources at hand. (For this topic, most of the sources I now have at hand relate mostly to human intelligence. Other sources will come into my office as I do more library runs or download more sources that have online full-text access.) But it is surely correct anywhere on Wikipedia to prefer mainstream secondary sources to newly published (possibly unreplicated) primary sources, so edits that go in the direction of removing sources (and attached statements) that not preferred Wikipedia sources will help Wikipedia articles shrink to reasonable size and help editors communicate more clearly about which factual statements belong in each article as NPOV, due weight representations of current scholarship. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Which "mainstream secondary sources" would you most recommend for this article? Ideal would be ones available on-line in some format. I don't know much about this literature. David.Kane (talk) 20:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

The most prominent journals are all on-line, although usually only university libraries subscribe to them. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:08, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Alas, David's editing process in the lede (always the most contentious part of an article to edit in any long article on a controversial topic) ran ahead of the source-gathering process, and an edit subsequent to my comment that opened this section has been identified by an administrator as a disruptive edit. It's prudent to source first and edit later. There is a lot to be learned from the best sources on the topic of this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:45, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Continued disruptive edits of first paragraph of lede.

It's long past time to discuss sources first, and edits later, for this article. I just picked up the latest biography of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza at my friendly local academic biography while attending a conference of mathematics teachers this weekend, and once again I am appalled at how some of the recent edits misrepresent the findings of leading researchers on the subject and how much they push a point of view. The ArbCom decision in the Race and Intelligence case should clarify some of the editor conduct issues here soon, but meanwhile let's use the article talk page to lay out sources, and calmly discuss those before making substantive changes in the text of the lede. Wikipedia must rely on reliable sources by policy, so changes in article text not based on sources will have to stay out of this contentious article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:35, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a serious accusation Weiji. Can you substantiate it? My edit was made in good faith. Also, do you think racial classification is based on "cultural and social" factors? It's BS and you know it. The first sentence was already unsourced. mikemikev (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

You inserted an attempt to define by biological characteristics. That is one perspective, it would not be present in most of anthropology for example. The lede has to present a balanced view, not that of a particular faction or theory.--Snowded ^TALK 15:24, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Snowded that the lead should be balanced. My understanding is that human race is based upon both social and biological characteristics. Isn't that widely accepted? That is, what is classified as "white" is different in, say, the US and Brazil (and so is social) but, at the same time, there are biological/genetic differences, at least on average, between different racial groups in all societies. That is, race is not purely social or purely biological. Comments welcome. David.Kane (talk) 15:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

The definition of race is subject to social and cultural factors, but the classification is always based on observed heritable traits. mikemikev (talk) 15:41, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

There is not going to be a single agreed definition. Some argue for biology, some for social, some for mixed. Some modern anthropology links to biological changes in the DNA within a few generations so inheritance is not the only determinant even of biology. It is a messy complex field and the best that can be hoped for is to indicate those differences. Classification is not always based on "observable heritable traits", that is just one school of thought. To be honest I think the debate here should be in suspension until the ARBCOM case on a related article is complete. To illustrate my point I recently set as an exam question (in relation to the Discworld series "Is Captain Carrot a dwarf". The answers covered a wide range (mostly well referenced) of answers--Snowded ^TALK 15:43, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, have a good evening. Over and out. mikemikev (talk) 15:51, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It would be useful to seek out reputable sources which in and of themselves discuss any given debate and objectively represent all sides to the debate so that we can relate what reliable scholarship states, not our self-constructed tit-for-tat / he-said-she-said versions under the guise of NPOV = "leave it to the reader" and which also inevitably lead to accusations of editorial infidelity to the topic. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes I agree. But the first sentence "Race refers to the classification of humans into populations or groups based on various factors such as culture, social practice or heritable characteristics" is unsourced. It seems obvious to me that racial classification is based on heritable characteristics alone (ie. it can be done with photographs). I'm pretty sure that in the absence of sourcing "various factors such as culture, social practice or" should be left out as the default position. We already have "Conceptions of race, as well as specific ways of grouping races, vary by culture and over time, effectively functioning as folk taxonomies" as the second sentence to clarify the matter. mikemikev (talk) 20:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Your "pretty obvious to me" editing is causing everyone trouble. Gimme five minutes and I'll source it. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm really sorry about all the trouble. It just seems like absolutely obvious BS to me. Perhaps I'm just a dumbass. mikemikev (talk) 21:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I tell you what, I'll change it, and when you get a source, you can change it back. mikemikev (talk) 21:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - it took me 20 minutese. The citation was obstinately refusing to format for me nicely. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll assume you failed to notice my citation beat you. I recommend you revert your edit, thank you. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:32, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

mikemikev, when you write, "It seems obvious to me that racial classification is based on heritable characteristics alone (ie. it can be done with photographs)," you make a statement for which there are hundreds of thousands (perhaps tens of millions) of counterexamples. (I am a first-degree relative of some persons for whom your statement doesn't work.) But if you want to put statements that are obvious to you into an encyclopedia, it is first of all your obligation to find reliable secondary sources to back up the statements. I'll be doing some reading of some of the latest professional handbooks I've just circulated from my state's flagship university library over the next few days. Reading serious academic books is good for the mind, and I highly recommend it. Try to find some books that challenge what seems obvious to you, and see what you learn from those. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 21:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

(I am a first-degree relative of some persons for whom your statement doesn't work.) How's that? Please stop patronizing me also. We got an unsourced statement sourced, I'm not arguing. mikemikev (talk) 21:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is quite amusing. Do think I could get a rough idea of the race of your first-degree relatives from looking at a photo, and no idea from knowledge of their language and culture in the absence of knowledge of heritable traits? You seem to be confusing fuzzy sets and classification criteria. mikemikev (talk) 22:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I recall seeing some studies about this a while ago: here, here, and here. According to these studies, when people attempt to judge someone else’s race based on visual appearance, it usually lines up with that person’s self-identification, although not 100% of the time. So Mikemikev is right that this is usually possible based on heritable characteristics alone, but WeijiBaikeBianji is right that there are notable exceptions where it isn’t. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Mikemikev writes that he can determine race by looking at photographs. How is this relevant to this discussion? If the article on racial hygiene were being discussed, it would be relevant, since in the 1936 edition of Rassenhygiene easy-to-use photographs, frontal and in profile, were inserted to allow easy recognition of different races by ordinary Germans in the street. The book is viewable on archive.org but I don't think an English translation was ever made. Mathsci (talk) 04:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not really the point. It's just an illustration of the principle that language and culture are not considered in the classification. Some people seem to be bashing some kind of "100% certainty discrete classification from photographs" strawman (and even descending to "the Nazi's thought it therefore it's wrong"). The point is that language and culture are not factors in racial classification, it's obvious. But that's my opinion (and the opinion of medical science, which is apparently trumped by the opinion of cultural anthropology and the encyclopedia brittanica, who am I to argue?). Why don't you stop going on about it? mikemikev (talk) 08:42, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Its far from obvious and if you check up on medical science and biology you will find your views are not shared. Check up on the work of Odling-Smee and others on lactose intolerance if you want an example of culture and biology stepping hand in hand. The Nazi issue is a real one. Just cause they thought it does not make it wrong, but when it relates to issues of race it should trigger some caution before making bold statements. --Snowded ^TALK 08:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

It would be totally irrelevant even if the racial differences were entirely caused by historical cultural differences (they aren't of course, but to some degree). The differences in themselves are genetic. mikemikev (talk) 10:07, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

On one theory of Race Mike, but its not the only one as you should know by now. If you look at the exaption literature you might see that some of your statements are increasingly been challenged --Snowded ^TALK 11:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Would you be so kind as to reference some of this paradigm shifting scholarship? mikemikev (talk) 12:17, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Well exaptation is interesting, not sure its paradigm shifting. A quick search on Odling-Smee will get you material. Then of course there is mass of material on the biological end of anthropology. You might like to look up Not by genes alone by Peter Richardson. The merger of cognitive science with aspects of philosophy of mind and anthropology is also interesting. Neither Brain not Ghost by Rockwell will give you a starting point there. Of course you won't find it obsessed with race. Hope that's useful, unless of course, God forbid, you were attempting sarcasm. --Snowded ^TALK 15:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

According to Mikemikev: "The definition of race is subject to social and cultural factors, but the classification is always based on observed heritable traits." Well, no. Just ... no. Untrue. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Better first sentence?

Thanks to Professor marginalia for providing such a good source from Encyclopædia Britannica for the first sentence. Looking at that source, the key sentence seems to be "“Race” is today primarily a sociological designation, identifying a class sharing some outward physical characteristics and some commonalities of culture and history." I am thinking of rewriting our first sentence to be much closer to this. Comments? David.Kane (talk) 00:14, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:PSTS, Encyclopedia Britannica would be considered a tertiary source. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem, but I know some people have been of the opinion that these articles should be based on nothing but secondary sources. Do other people think we should cite a tertiary source for this part of the article? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

@David.Kane. This is the introduction and needs to be more encompassing. It's clear from reading the whole article that at times they're talking about what people tend to first presume race is, at others what scientists (physical anthropologists primarily) formerly defined race as, and now what is generally considered to encompass these and other shifting definitions within a broader, sociologically ("culturally") based classification which means different things in different cultural contexts. The outward physical characteristics needs to be there somewhere-it's obviously one of the more commonly used features-but maybe it should be incorporated better into a reworking of the "Race serves to indicate essential types of individuals or fuzzy sets of people's traits" which I still think is unclear. (Essential types and fuzzy sets are too conflated or something in the sentence. It don't know what this is meaning to say.) I also think the "subspecies" discussion needs a tweak as well. Race and subspecies do mean the same things in biology, but biologists will say that biologically or taxonomically humans cannot be classified into races. In other words, in biology race and subspecies are the same, but the diversity in humans today don't qualify as having any. But there's lots of time to talk this out, so let's nobody go crazy and start making changes yet.

@Captain Occam, tertiary is fine - EB is used throughout wikipedia. It's often one of the better ways to assess the most general or commonly accepted in topics where dwell devotees who may have more intensively researched specialities but bring very selective or narrow points of view and get too lost in the tall weeds. Professor marginalia (talk) 01:24, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

@Marginalia, Subspecies status is not decided by genome diversity accounting. It can't be since we don't know what most of the genome is doing. 'Subspecies' is a vague but informative term, much like 'race'. Subspecies applies to non-interbreeding but potentially interbreeding populations, with some noticeable difference (undefined). Race can be applied to clinally varied populations. I mean what do we call clinal genetic variation among humans? Race. It's not precise, but it can be informative. mikemikev (talk) 10:45, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sharing more of your "pretty obvious to me" insights here? Because it continues to strike me odd how little correlation there is between your arguments and the claims in mainstream secondary sources, including ones you've cited in support of your edits. If scientists are studying genome differences it is in a sense irrelevant what the genome is "doing". So there's fairly strong consensus on this-as reflected in EB: most scientists seek to apply the same criteria to humans as the rest of the animal kingdom--the majority haven't agreed to apply some ad hocish exemption for humans for the interim while they try and dig up a novel justification to consider them distinct taxonomically. For example, though they find there to be geographic clines in human populations, known correlations such as between skin color and latitude tend to show relatively little co-variance with other traits, and it's not a meaningful stand-in for racial taxonomy. (Most population geneticists prefer to measure neutral genetic differences from multiple loci for this kind of taxonomic analysis for similar reasons--selected traits can be distorted measures of distance.) There's a good discussion of the various analyses evolutionists apply comparing populations in Fish's Race and Intelligence cited in the Race and intelligence article. Professor marginalia (talk) 15:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Utter crap. mikemikev (talk) 18:12, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I take it your answer would then be "yes", you were simply offering another one of your "pretty obvious to me" arguments. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:17, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

(The last I checked we're all the same species.) I don't have a suggestion for the lede at the moment, but it seems a bit of a hodge-podge—in fact, regarding the first sentence, the lede might be better off as only the first sentence. As soon as the lede strays into the "purpose" of race it's already in muddy waters. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 05:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Uhh, utter crap should probably be taken as a no. To save time, I will just copy paste (mostly) what I wrote in the Arbcom case:

[You (Marginalia)] said "In other words, in biology race and subspecies are the same, but the diversity in humans today don't qualify as having any", and I was making the point that genetic diversity cannot be used to decide whether or not race is of taxonomic significance. Taxonomy is based on phenotypic characteristics. Until we know what the genome is doing we cannot reason (Lewontin style) from genotypic to phenotypic diversity. So "If scientists are studying genome differences it is in a sense irrelevant what the genome is "doing"" is wrong except for a naive and valueless genome comparison, and it's certainly irrelevant to this discussion (ironically).

Certainly there is no ad hoc exemption for humans. For example flowers can be considered races just by having different colored petals. Peppered moths are races when they change color in dirty cities. In this case the phenotypic change in question is probably the only difference, and it is clinal. The genetic diversity within as opposed to between groups is absolutely huge, but they are still races and of taxonomic significance. Human races differ even more and in more ways, ways which are found to be correlated.

Concerning your point about skin color not correlating with anything, I agree. However race does correlate with things so I wonder why you throw in this red herring.

And I know that your sources don't support what you're saying.

Hence: "Utter crap." mikemikev (talk) 04:16, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

And if one is basing race purely on the phenotype then nobody would bother measuring genetic differences in the first place. So what kind of work do you think geneticists like Cavalli-Sforza and Lewontin are doing? Studying tooth cusps and femurs? See here for a source, quoted. And stop wasting our time here. This is not the place to share your theories, nor is it the place to post all the guesswork and wishful thinking you've been shoving out about what is actually said in the sources. Professor marginalia (talk) 06:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Well here's a paper about it.[12]

"In popular articles that play down the genetical differences among human populations, it is often stated that about 85% of the total genetical variation is due to individual differences within populations and only 15% to differences between populations or ethnic groups. It has therefore been proposed that the division of Homo sapiens into these groups is not justified by the genetic data. This conclusion, due to R.C. Lewontin in 1972, is unwarranted because the argument ignores the fact that most of the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data and not simply in the variation of the individual factors. The underlying logic, which was discussed in the early years of the last century, is here discussed using a simple genetical example."

I'm basically just repeating what's there, with some examples to make it easier to understand. I thought you would be aware of this paper.

I read your link, thanks. Templeton certainly isn't a major figure in genetics and taxonomy (as Edwards is in the paper above). I'm not sure his synthesis can be regarded as reliable here. mikemikev (talk) 10:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

From your link:

"(In analyzing criteria *a) "The validity of the traditional subspecies definition of human races can now be addressed by examining the quantitative patterns and amount of genetic diversity found within and among human populations. A standard criterion for a subspecies or race in the nonhuman literature under the traditional definition of a subspecies as a geographically circumscribed, sharply differentiated population is to have F st values of at least 0.25 to 0.30 (Smith et al., 1997). " (Human F st values are about .15.)"

"For example, when the analysis includes only humans, FST = 0.119, but adding the chimpanzees increases it only a little, FST = 0.183."[13] mikemikev (talk) 11:57, 7 August 2010 (UTC)