Are racial differences obvious and important, or nonexistent?

[Throg]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

No disagreement that people often believe things that are obvious but not true. However, when discussing observed differences between groups, as we are here, it's a different story. The earth-centric versus solar centric theory isn't applicable - you're not comparing two groups.

Given that comparison can only be made on the basis of observation of each individual in the first place, observing differences has the same problem. Of course, I could point to the very many optical illusions, with which you are likely familiar, where there are obvious differences which do not in fact have any basis in reality (lines of equal length appearing to have different lengths for instance) . I'm not suggesting that differneces in skin colour are always or even optical illusions - though on occasion they will be - but the general point that obvious differences can be illusory is taken isn't it?

The differences between men are women are not only obvious, but also undeniably real. "Inferior" was a value judgement applied to those real differences

Not so. It was obvious that women were much less intelligent than men for instance. That was not a value judgment based on real differences.

think you may be confusing value judgments about differences with the differences themselves

Not at all, but I am not convinced that race is effectively anything more than a value jugment in any case.

Saying that the differences in skin tone and facial charactoristics between races are real is a different matter than making a value judgement about those charactoristics

It is, but saying there are differences in skin tone and facial characteristics between races implicitly relies upon the validity of the concept of race. If you say there are differences in such characteristics between individuals we have no argument. If you say that a certain cluster of well-defined characteristics are more commonly found in the people of a particular geographical region at a particular time we have no argument. If you say that any of that implies race in a non-trivial way, then you need to show how it implies that from first principles without implicitly assuming that the concept has validity.

 

[Beth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

Given that comparison can only be made on the basis of observation of each individual in the first place, observing differences has the same problem. Of course, I could point to the very many optical illusions, with which you are likely familiar, where there are obvious differences which do not in fact have any basis in reality (lines of equal length appearing to have different lengths for instance) . I'm not suggesting that differneces in skin colour are always or even optical illusions - though on occasion they will be - but the general point that obvious differences can be illusory is taken isn't it?

Er, no. Optical illusions rely on a particular placement and juxtapositioning of individual items. I'm unaware of any obvious differences between two groups that are not real. Want to try again?

Not so. It was obvious that women were much less intelligent than men for instance. That was not a value judgment based on real differences.

No, I don't think that this was an "obvious" difference. I think it was a value judgment based on real differences. Men and women think differently. The idea that one way of thinking is inferior to the other is a value judgment. There is a strong tendency for people to assume that acknowledging differences is equivalent to making a value judgement about those differences. My opinion is that pretending real differences don't exist is a lot like sticking your head in the sand.

Not at all, but I am not convinced that race is effectively anything more than a value jugment in any case.

Categorization of any large and complex group is going to be a value judgement to some extent. Just look at some of the recent posts in this thread about identifing species. That doesn't mean there aren't real differences between species or between races.

It is, but saying there are differences in skin tone and facial characteristics between races implicitly relies upon the validity of the concept of race.

If you say there are differences in such characteristics between individuals we have no argument. If you say that a certain cluster of well-defined characteristics are more commonly found in the people of a particular geographical region at a particular time we have no argument. If you say that any of that implies race in a non-trivial way, then you need to show how it implies that from first principles without implicitly assuming that the concept has validity.

I think the concept of race is valid. Different groups of people look different enough from other groups of people that one can reliably (though not infallibly) assess ancestry of another individual based on certain charactoristics. Asians look different from Africans and both look different from Caucasians. Is that really such a controversial concept?

 

[Throg]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

Er, no. Optical illusions rely on a particular placement and juxtapositioning of individual items. I'm unaware of any obvious differences between two groups that are not real. Want to try again?

Er, no. Many optical illusions rely on the fact that a great deal of artefacts are introduced into our sense data by the neural structures involved in sensory processing. The lines of equal length illusion for instance is a direct result of neural structures which have specifically evolved to find differences and in a wide range of circumstances find differences were ther aren't any. Similarly, as early in visual processing as the retina there are cells which preferentially identify face-like shapes as faces, regardless of whether they are actually faces or not. You can find similar examples of illusions, or false results from processing - including, specifically the identifying of differences - in auditory and touch processing. Buy a basic psychology text book and you will find a wealth of examples.

No, I don't think that this was an "obvious" difference

It was an obvious difference to them. It is not obvious to you. Similarly it is obvious to you that racial differences exist. It is not obvious to me.

My opinion is that pretending real differences don't exist is a lot like sticking your head in the sand

I agree but you must not start from the presumption that an obvious difference is real. You must investigate the claim otherwise all you are doing is relying on intuition and a set of neural pattern recognition firmware that was evolved to cope with much simpler problems.

Categorization of any large and complex group is going to be a value judgement to some extent. Just look at some of the recent posts in this thread about identifing species. That doesn't mean there aren't real differences between species or between races

You're still implicitly assuming the existence of race in your argument. You are begging the question.

Different groups of people look different enough from other groups of people that one can reliably (though not infallibly) assess ancestry of another individual based on certain charactoristics. Asians look different from Africans and both look different from Caucasians. Is that really such a controversial concept?

You are still begging the question. You are assuming the existence of Caucasians - I will ignore Asians and Africans because even when race was considered a valid concept in the physical sciences these were not categories of race - and then finding characteristics to place them into that group. You are blithely unconcerned that there will be counter-examples because you start from the position that the category is real and shoe-horn the data into that category. It doesn't matter that some of the data doesn't fit because it doesn't have to be infallible even in principle, just reliable. That isn't science, it's blind faith. When a scientific theory fails repeatedly - and I take it that when you say not infallible you are not suggesting that you are only going to fail once - it is rejected. If your theory fails repeatedly and you still cling to it you are not being scientific and you are not being rational.


edited for a missing 's'.

 

[Beth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

Er, no. Many optical illusions rely on the fact that a great deal of artefacts are introduced into our sense data by the neural structures involved in sensory processing. The lines of equal length illusion for instance is a direct result of neural structures which have specifically evolved to find differences and in a wide range of circumstances find differences were ther aren't any. Similarly, as early in visual processing as the retina there are cells which preferentially identify face-like shapes as faces, regardless of whether they are actually faces or not. You can find similar examples of illusions, or false results from processing - including, specifically the identifying of differences - in auditory and touch processing. Buy a basic psychology text book and you will find a wealth of examples.

Optical illusions of differences (such as the lines of equal length, not faces or other such things) depend on placement and juxtapositioning of individual items. Neural structures are part of it, yes, but take away the positioning and the illusion vanishes. It isn't an "obvious" difference between two groups.

It was an obvious difference to them. It is not obvious to you. Similarly it is obvious to you that racial differences exist. It is not obvious to me.

No, I agree with them that the difference is obvious. I don't agree with them regarding the judgment of 'inferiority'. The obvious difference (that men and women think differently) is quite real. Thus, this isn't an example of an obvious difference that isn't real.

I agree but you must not start from the presumption that an obvious difference is real. You must investigate the claim otherwise all you are doing is relying on intuition and a set of neural pattern recognition firmware that was evolved to cope with much simpler problems.

Sorry, but before you can convince me not to start with the presumption that an obvious difference isn't real, I would ask that you provide a single example of a case where an obvious difference between two groups wasn't real. You have yet to do so.

You are still begging the question. You are assuming the existence of Caucasians - I will ignore Asians and Africans because even when race was considered a valid concept in the physical sciences these were not categories of race - and then finding characteristics to place them into that group. You are blithely unconcerned that there will be counter-examples because you start from the position that the category is real and shoe-horn the data into that category. It doesn't matter that some of the data doesn't fit because it doesn't have to be infallible even in principle, just reliable. That isn't science, it's blind faith. When a scientific theory fails repeatedly - and I take it that when you say not infallible you are not suggesting that you are only going to fail once - it is rejected. If your theory fails repeatedly and you still cling to it you are not being scientific and you are not being rational.

You're the one claiming that the obvious difference in skin tone between blacks and caucasians isn't real and I'm the one that's not rational?

Counter-examples don't bother me because I don't insist that everyone be placed into a single category. The edges are fuzzy and there's considerable overlap. That doesn't mean that such categorization can't be useful. Too many professionals, such as anthropologists and detectives, find race to be a useful categorization for me to deny that it exists.

I read a story some years ago about how a group of ancient caucasian mummies were found in an area of China and the discovery required a revision of history. Previously it had been believed that caucasians hadn't settled there at that point in history. Now, how can those scientists make that determination if race doesn't exist and they couldn't, with reasonable accuracy, identify the race of those mummies from their remains?

 

[Bikewer]

You'd have a hard time finding any ethnically "pure" people on the face of the Earth. The best claim may have been made by the aboriginal Australians, who remained isolated from most of humanity for many thousands of years.

However, the among the first things discovered by the just-arrived Brits was that Aboriginal women were just as female as any others....

 

[AWPrime]

What about the Icelanders?

 

[drkitten]

What about the Icelanders?

Not nearly as isolated as the Australian aborigines; Iceland was, after all, settled (by the Norse) within written memory.

 

[Throg]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

Optical illusions of differences (such as the lines of equal length, not faces or other such things) depend on placement and juxtapositioning of individual items. Neural structures are part of it, yes, but take away the positioning and the illusion vanishes. It isn't an "obvious" difference between two groups.



No, I agree with them that the difference is obvious. I don't agree with them regarding the judgment of 'inferiority'. The obvious difference (that men and women think differently) is quite real. Thus, this isn't an example of an obvious difference that isn't real.

Now I get it. Obvious, is what's obvious to you and anything that isn't obvious to you isn't obvious to anybody.

You are just plain wrong about optical illusions. Many sensory illusions have nothing to do with relative positions but to do with implicit assumptions in our sensory appartatus.

And I really hope you are joking about the "men and women think differently" nonsense.

Perhaps we can come back to this one day after you have learned the difference between objective and subjective.

 

[Beth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexisten

You are just plain wrong about optical illusions. Many sensory illusions have nothing to do with relative positions but to do with implicit assumptions in our sensory appartatus.

I haven't disagreed with you regarding the implicit assumptions in our sensory appartatus. But we were discussing specifically differences between groups, not just all optical illusions. Most of the ones you have given as examples have nothing at all to do with distinguishing differences. Those that do (such as the length of lines illusion) are dependent on, among other things, the positioning of the items being compared. Change the position, the illusion of a difference vanishes. Thus, they are not 'obvious' differences because they don't hold up to changing the position of the items. I don't think that continuity of the perception of a difference under a change of position is an unreasonable condition to hold for an 'obvious' difference.

And I really hope you are joking about the "men and women think differently" nonsense.

No, I'm not. I've read of studies that showed that the brains of homosexual men were more like the brains of women in some aspects than they are like the brains of men. It seems reasonable to infer from such a study that the brains of men and women are, in fact, different in some aspects and thus, they would think differently. There is other evidence that they think differently, but that's the only one that shows the differences are physical and innate, not cultural.

The president of Harvard recently got into hot water for referring to such differences. Saying that differences between groups exist is not the same as saying that every member of a particular group is the same, but somehow, that seems to be the interpretation. The president of Harvard was accused of saying that women could not do science and mathematics (obviously not true and not what he said or what he meant), but people interpreted it that way.

Perhaps we can come back to this one day after you have learned the difference between objective and subjective.

Hmmm. I'll take that to mean that you cannot come up with a single example of an 'obvious' difference between groups that is not also real. As far as objective versus subjective goes, it's not a dicotomy any more than black and white is. Those are simply the labels we give to the two different ends of a spectrum. Perhaps the difference between the two is only obvious, but not real?

Anyway, thanks for the stimulating discussion. It's been fun.

 

[Gestahl]

I think you are all missing the point. No one would (or at least should) argue that these genetic differences are at all important from a biological standpoint, especially as they relate to our everyday interactions with people. Race has two meanings, one biological, one in common parlance which also refers to culture.

Racial differences are important, but not at the genetic level. Tribalism (still with us today in all cultures) leads to cultural and genetic isolation and a closed system of evolution (genetic/cultural drift). Genetic differences and cultural differences need not be linked, but often are, because we tend to choose to mate and associate with those like us (physically and culturally). The problem is when we try and attribute those cultural differences to genetic predispositions.

If you talk to racists, they beliefs don't stem (originally) from the thought that people are genetically inferior, rather that they are culturally inferior in some aspect (appreciation of material wealth, morality, family values, social constructs, proper speech etc.). Something must make them this way and genetics can be a quick scapegoat. No one compains about the position of genetic markers... they complain about what they see in the other person as different. Skin color is only the beginning. The appellation "******" (apologies for the use of the word) when used by many doesn't mean the successful African-American that works at your bank and has mimicked the culture most associated with fair-skinned Americans (rejected by those in the culture most associated with darker skin color as "Uncle Toms"). It means the poor, relatively uneducated, etc. persons of darker skin color that listen to rap music, for example. Racism is the outgrowth of cultural tribalism. "They" are different than "we" are.

Now, when I say that these differences are important, I mean that they matter in how we deal with people, nothing more. I do not believe one can make a value judgement on superior versus inferior culture, as culture is the source itself for value judgements. The underlying motivations for your actions should not be different. How they are executed (and perceived by others) must necessarily change to avoid miscommunication.

 

[jay gw]

Now, when I say that these differences are important, I mean that they matter in how we deal with people, nothing more. I do not believe one can make a value judgement on superior versus inferior culture, as culture is the source itself for value judgements.

Please explain then why Mexicans and Central Americans die trying to get to the United States, but almost nobody from the US willingly emigrates to Mexico.

 

[Throg]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexi

Hmmm. I'll take that to mean that you cannot come up with a single example of an 'obvious' difference between groups that is not also real.

You can take that to be the case.

I will take it to be the case that there is no more point trying to discuss matters of objective reality with a person who does not understand the difference between subjective and objective than to discuss it with a child who has not developed beyond egocentrism.

Since what is obvious to you is objectively obvious, you may take it that your position is correct.

 

[Beth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or no

You can take that to be the case.

I will take it to be the case that there is no more point trying to discuss matters of objective reality with a person who does not understand the difference between subjective and objective than to discuss it with a child who has not developed beyond egocentrism.

Insults do not aid your argument.

Since what is obvious to you is objectively obvious, you may take it that your position is correct.

Thank you.

 

[drkitten]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

Given that comparison can only be made on the basis of observation of each individual in the first place, observing differences has the same problem. Of course, I could point to the very many optical illusions, with which you are likely familiar, where there are obvious differences which do not in fact have any basis in reality (lines of equal length appearing to have different lengths for instance) . I'm not suggesting that differneces in skin colour are always or even optical illusions - though on occasion they will be - but the general point that obvious differences can be illusory is taken isn't it?

Not really. Using skin color as an example, it's certainly an "obvious" trait, but (as I pointed out upthread) also a trait for which we can identify a biological basis (the melanin content of the skin), and even the genes that are responsible for producing much of the variation in this measurable quantity.

There's no meaningful sense in which skin color can be regarded as an "unreal" difference.

aying there are differences in skin tone and facial characteristics between races implicitly relies upon the validity of the concept of race.

It does not.

If you say there are differences in such characteristics between individuals we have no argument. If you say that a certain cluster of well-defined characteristics are more commonly found in the people of a particular geographical region at a particular time we have no argument. If you say that any of that implies race in a non-trivial way, then you need to show how it implies that from first principles without implicitly assuming that the concept has validity.

The validity of the concept of race can be independently demonstrated. Dawkins proposed a very simple test in The Ancestor's Tale:

Well, suppose we took full-face photographs of 20 randomly chosen natives of each of the following countries: Japan, Uganda, Iceland, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Egypt. If we presented 120 people with all 120 photographs, my guess is that every single one of them would achieve 100 per cent success in sorting them into six different categories… I haven't done the experiment, but I am confident that you will agree with me on what the result would be.

I can't imagine you would seriously want (or be able) to dispute this.

Now, there are several meaningful extensions of this. The first, one that Dawkins himself proposed, is to see whether or not the people would be able to correctly affix the national label onto each of the resulting group. He expects (and I concur) that they would. The second is to see whether subjects would also produce a high level of inter-rater agreement if explicitly asked to sort them "by race."

I expect that they would. At this point, simple cluster analysis based on inter-rater similarity would be able to identify which clusters are viewed as more similar and see whether or not there is broad overall agreement. In particular, if the test included humans from both China and Japan, I expect that there would be a relatively high number of people confusing the two. This degree of similarity (measured by confusion) would put Chinese and Japanese into the same super-national group. Pick the top three or four superclusters from this analysis, and what have you identified, if not "race"?

You're committing the "bright line" fallacy. You want and expect there to be a bright line that clearly distinguishes members of two different "races." This is clearly nonsensical, whether we're talking about a cultural definition of "race" or a genetic one. On the other hand, we can talk about a (perceptual) racial prototype, and degrees of similarity and dissimilarity to the various prototypes, which makes a lot more sense psychologically speaking. And it's also quite legitimate at that point to ask whether or not there are any genetic traits that correlate with the high-level groupings independently established.

The answer, of course, is that there are. Skin color and epicanthic folds are simple examples. And this isn't contradicted by the fact that, as was pointed out upthread, that humans are overwhelmingly genetically uniform, by the fact that most traits are not correlated especially well with known racial groupings, or even by the fact that within-group variation will often dominate between-group variation. As Dawkins put it (again):

We are indeed a very uniform species if you count the totality of genes, or if you take a truly random sample of genes, but perhaps there are special reasons for a disproportionate amount of variation in those very genes that make it easy for us to notice variation, and to distinguish our own kind from others. These would include the genes responsible for externally visible "labels" like skin colour. I want to suggest that this heightened discriminability has evolved by sexual selection, specifically in humans because we are such a culture-bound species. Because our mating decisions are so heavily influenced by cultural tradition, and because our cultures, and sometimes our religions, encourage us to discriminate against outsiders, especially in choosing mates, those superficial differences that helped our ancestors to prefer insiders over outsiders have been enhanced out of all proportion to the real genetic differences between us.

 

[Throg]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

There's no meaningful sense in which skin color can be regarded as an "unreal" difference.
/B]

I have explicitly agreed that as a difference in skin color between two individuals is a real difference.

It does not

Of course it does. You cannot posit a difference between two groups unless you implicitly acknowledging the existence of the two groups.

Well, suppose we took full-face photographs of 20 randomly chosen natives of each of the following countries: Japan, Uganda, Iceland, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Egypt. If we presented 120 people with all 120 photographs, my guess is that every single one of them would achieve 100 per cent success in sorting them into six different categories… I haven't done the experiment, but I am confident that you will agree with me on what the result would be.

Oh well, if you guess ...

I am not at all confident that you would have a 100 per cent success rate. I will grant you a significant success rate but I would actually be rather surprised by a 100 percent success rate since within each of these areas you are going to get a range of characteristics, very likely varying according to a normal distribution. At the tail ends of the distribution, there are going to be individuals who are distinctly unrepresentative of normal characteristics for their region. I would expect that we can agree on this, but I am by no means confident.

I can't imagine you would seriously want (or be able) to dispute this

I think I just did and unless you seriously want to posit that trends in physical characteristics by region do not show something at least approximating a normal distribution then I think I did so quite reasonalbly. I await your response with interest.

He expects (and I concur) that they would

Expectations are not really helpful. In fact, I would posit that they actually obscure the truth of the matter (whether the truth is my position or yours).

On the other hand, we can talk about a (perceptual) racial prototype

Now here I think you have a promising concept.

And this isn't contradicted by the fact that, as was pointed out upthread, that humans are overwhelmingly genetically uniform, by the fact that most traits are not correlated especially well with known racial groupings

.

One problem is that you start out trying to correlate them with known racial groupings and thus begin with the assumption that racial groupings are valid. You cannot prove the proposition that "race A exists" by assigning people to race A on an a priori basis and then looking for common characteristics within that group. The setup of the experiment ensures that you will get the result you expect.

Methodological problems aside, what exactly are you saying race is if there is no especially strong correlation of traits? I have already allowed that if all you are saying is that a person who has a significant number of ancestors are from a particular region has a greater chance of displaying certain characteristics than than a person who does not have a significant number of ancestors from a particlar region and within a given time frame, we have no argument. But that is a far cry from showing that there is any validity to the concepts of aboriginal, caucassoid, negroid races.

 

[drkitten]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

I am not at all confident that you would have a 100 per cent success rate. I will grant you a significant success rate but I would actually be rather surprised by a 100 percent success rate since within each of these areas you are going to get a range of characteristics, very likely varying according to a normal distribution. At the tail ends of the distribution, there are going to be individuals who are distinctly unrepresentative of normal characteristics for their region. I would expect that we can agree on this, but I am by no means confident.

But since the characteristics vary along a normal distribution, twenty (or, for that matter, any particular individual among the twenty) are rather unlikely to unrepresentative along any single characteristic. (More formally, only one of the twenty would be expected to vary outside of the normal "two-sigma" boundary along any single characteristic.) If you assume, as is reasonable, that there are multiple distinguishing characteristics -- for example, an on-line source suggests the following as "Asian" phenotypic characteristics : "yellow" skin coloration, wide, flat cheekbones, epicanthic folds, straight black hair, sparse body hair, and "shovel-shaped" incisors --- the chances are remote that any randomly-chosen individual would be strongly atypical in all aspects.

So I would be very surprised not to get 100 percent agreement in an experiment on the scale described. If you decided to use, not twenty photos per group, but two thousand, then you would be much more likely to explore seriously the tails of the various normal distributions.

The primary problem is that "race" as typically judged is a cluster of such characteristics. Shovel-shaped incisors are also typical of native Swedish, but that, by itself, is not enough to cause people to judge Swedish as "Asian."

One problem is that you start out trying to correlate them with known racial groupings and thus begin with the assumption that racial groupings are valid. You cannot prove the proposition that "race A exists" by assigning people to race A on an a priori basis and then looking for common characteristics within that group. The setup of the experiment ensures that you will get the result you expect.

On the contrary, since the concept of race is primarily one of social attribution, a consistent social attribution is the only legitimate way to evaluate whether or not "race" exists

Methodological problems aside, what exactly are you saying race is if there is no especially strong correlation of traits?

I am specifically not saying "there is no especially strong correlation of traits." On the contrary, I am claiming "there is no especially strong correlation of most traits."

There's no correlation between ability to roll one's tongue and sex. That doesn't invalidate sex as either a social or a genetic type.

 

[Gestahl]

Please explain then why Mexicans and Central Americans die trying to get to the United States, but almost nobody from the US willingly emigrates to Mexico.

Umm... because the US has a better standard of living that has almost as much to do with luck, abundance of natural resources, historical vagaries as it does the indigenous culture?

Both cultures value material possession, the U.S. has more. All that says is that *their* culture highly values our country. I can name you several cultures that do not, and would die to *not* have to live here.

What is your point?

 

[Throg]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are racial differences real or nonexistent?

The primary problem is that "race" as typically judged is a cluster of such characteristics. Shovel-shaped incisors are also typical of native Swedish, but that, by itself, is not enough to cause people to judge Swedish as "Asian."

...and epicanthic folds are typical of a number of European population groups, straight black hair of a number of South American population groups and so on. The characteristics are not diagnostic and I do not think "mis-diagnosis" is nearly as unlikely as you seem to think even if we use clusters of characteristics.

So I would be very surprised not to get 100 percent agreement in an experiment on the scale described.

You might be surprised but it is not especially unlikely that such as mall sample will be unrepresentative of the expected distribution.

If you decided to use, not twenty photos per group, but two thousand, then you would be much more likely to explore seriously the tails of the various normal distributions.

In which case we would be both more likely to get a group representative of the expected distribution and likely to include more individuals who would be "mis-diagnosed".

None of this changes the fact that you are proposing no more than a probabilistic correlation of characteristics or clusters of characteristics with historical-geographical data about individuals and their ancestors.

On the contrary, since the concept of race is primarily one of social attribution, a consistent social attribution is the only legitimate way to evaluate whether or not "race" exists

Then what are we arguing about. I have been suggesting all along that race was nothing more than a social construct.

I am claiming "there is no especially strong correlation of most traits."

Then, subject to a revised methodology you are going to need to justify both the minimum number of traits and the selection of particular traits as indicative of race rather than other, such that we do not end up with "blue eyed race", "tongue-rolling race" and so on. Of course if you are merely claiming that race is a socially constructed category, there is no particular problem with identifying a "tongue-rolling race" rather than a "dark-skinned race".

There's no correlation between ability to roll one's tongue and sex. That doesn't invalidate sex as either a social or a genetic type

No but noone has suggested that the ability to roll one's tongue can be used to ascribe one to the category male and female. Categories which are in any case "real" in the sense that there is simple diagnostic feature of one particular chromosone. Of course if we were to discuss gender, the social construct, rather than biological sex, things would be somewhat different.

 

[rppa]

Please explain then why Mexicans and Central Americans die trying to get to the United States, but almost nobody from the US willingly emigrates to Mexico.

Are you making the case that they're doing so to partake of American movies, TV, fast food, and other cultural appurtenances? Since you offer this as evidence of superior culture?

Couldn't they be coming for, you know, money?