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[supernumerary]

acrimone, you're definitely on to something significant here. I can't improve on the eloquence of your statement, but just to add a little to what you've said - we know that 'natural selection' does not produce the 'best' or 'optimal' result. Survival of 'the fittest' just means the fittest in the particular context - it doesn't mean objective or inherent superiority. The way evolution works, the 'winning' race is simply the race best able, in given states of the world as it happens to be constructed (with all its unfairnesses), to adapt itself to succeed in that specific environment. And the environment of course changes over time. I will definitely scout around to see if anyone has developed this idea more formally in the context of race.

[helpful]

I am not sure it is exactly what you are looking for supern, but Jared Diamond's work on Guns, Germs and Steel and on the collapse of civilizations seems appropriate. Also take a look at Ronald Wright's Massey Lectures on the same subject.

[supernumerary]

thanks, helpful -- that's very helpful! The reasoning seems sound so I thought someone must have written along these lines...

[anthroid]

Oh dear.  Oh dear oh dear oh dear.  acrimone, I do hope you are being facetious.  To claim that "whites" are smarter than "non-whites" is simply not true.  If you're serious, I suspect you're assuming this from measures of IQ.  However, those measures--as any reasonable scholar will say today--do not tell us about intelligence but about the ability to take IQ tests.  Intelligence has in no way been objectively measured.  It is not possible to say then that "white" people are more intelligent than anyone else.  Indeed, the Irish--to use al_wallace's very poorly drawn example of a race (more on that in a minute)--consistently have scored lower on IQ tests as British immigrants.  Yet both populations are "white."  Please explain your apparent Bell Curve logic.

The reality is that the folks in power get to decide what constitutes "smart" and they create tests to measure this.  Oppressed populations do not have the opportunity to have access to the same resources as the powerful and thus do worse on the tests.  They are neither smarter or dumber--they are oppressed.  IQ tests measure nothing important when discussing human variation.

al_wallace, Irish people do not express, phenotypically, any more red hair, freckles, and fair skin than do most Icelanders, many Brits and Scots, and a plurality of Scandinavians, including the Danes.  If red hair is a marker of "whiteness," please explain the Australian Aborigine tendency toward red hair.  In fact, if dark skin is a marker of "blackness" and, presumably, African heritage, please explain Australian Aborigines, who migrated from Asia (and yet do not have the epicanthal fold).  Please explain the lack of the epicanthal fold among all indigenous American populations other than the Inuit, given the fact that American Indians migrated from Asia.  If someone is of African origin and thus presumably has more and coarser melanin, why are northern Africans "white"?  If the epicanthal fold is a marker of Asian heritage, please explain how the San of the Kalahari desert have it.  Please explain dark skin, a marker I guess of African heritage, among southern--though not northern--South Asian Indians.

"Mexican" is not a race.  It is an ethnicity, given that "Mexicans" are generally both of European and Asian origin (Spanish and American Indian).  "Hispanic" is not a race either.  The Japanese are not a racial group; neither are the Chinese, or the Indians, or the Saudis.

In short, al_wallace, biologists may claim the usefulness of "race" for understanding human variation.  Most anthropologists do not, given the numerous examples of how phenotype does NOT explain origin.  We prefer to eliminate race when discussing human variation and use your subterm of biological population, or cline.  That tells us, for instance, that the alleged "race-linked" genetic trait for sickle-cell anemia is not linked to African populations solely but rather is an adaptation to chronic malaria and appears in a number of Mediterranean and Adriatic populations as well (such as Turks and Armenians).  Now, granted, this is a genotype rather than a strict phenotype, but it is expressed after all in sickle cell anemia.  Blood types too seem to be more reliable genetic population markers than skin color is.  Skin color changes among many different populations in reaction to exposure to sunlight.  It is an evolutionary adaptation, but it is not linked to one or the other place specifically.  Therefore, it really is not predictive of population origin. 

al_wallace, I know you're making some of these same points, reading over your posts on the subject.  However, as you point out, the pandemic nature of human reproduction means that "race" has little to no biological meaning any longer.  It predicts nothing.  This is why anthropology has "thrown the baby out with the bath water."  If a concept doesn't work, there is no point in using it any further (kind of like "instinct," which my biologist friends tell me has been abandoned, at least with regard to human behavior, finally too!).

And, folks, evolution is not about "survival of the fittest" but natural selection of traits that either improve reproductive ability or, at the least, do not harm it.  The "fittest" do not necessarily survive better than others.  Evolution is about good-enough, not about the best, however that is defined.

With regard to readings, look at Kottak, Assault on Paradise:  Social Chage in a Brazilian Village (1999; Kottak is the chair of anthropology at Michigan); Harris, Marvin Referential Ambiguity in the Calculus of Brazilian Racial Identity, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 26: 1-14 (1970); Claude S. Fischer, Michael Hout, Martin Sanchez Jankowski, and Samuel R. Lucas, Inequality by Design, 1996.  There is plenty more out there by reputable scientists.  Jared Diamond is good, as is Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man.

[prytania3]

"Mexican" is not a race.  It is an ethnicity, given that "Mexicans" are generally both of European and Asian origin (Spanish and American Indian).

Mexicans belong to La Raza Cosmica!

And where's Boricua? I miss him so.

[prytania3]

the pandemic nature of human reproduction means that "race" has little to no biological meaning any longer. 

Tell that to someone who has sickle cell, and think of the possible ramifications for funding of particular diseases that are found in high percentages in some "clines." Diabetes is very high among La Raza.

[larryc]

American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race"
http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them.

The above is just a short part of the whole. Interesting how they dismiss
race as a scientifically useful category, but do not go so far as to state that race is entirely a social construct.

[supernumerary]

Thus, it may be a biological fact that "whites" (however you define it) are smarter than "non-whites" (or vice versa) but that doesn't mean that this is a necessary trait of whiteness.  To the extent that the observation is (generally) true, it is true simply because that is the way things turned out, evolutionarily speaking.  It doesn't mean that it will always be that way, or that it couldn't have turned out some other way.

See there anthroid, I don't think acrimone was claiming that whites are smarter than non-whites. Notice the parenthetical 'or vice versa'. I understood acrimone to be saying that judged by our current and predominant tests of 'smartness' people who are white (whatever that means) can come out top of those tests without that meaning that they are inherently and necessarily the 'smartest' in all states of the world and for all time. The same would apply, vice versa, if we devised 'tests' on which non-white people consistently came out tops. That still wouldn't tell us anything except their aptness for the particular 'tests'. Tests here is not just IQ tests but also social and economic success, non-involvement in crime, cultural 'sophistication' - all those things we rightly and wrongly use to assign 'success' in the world as currently constructed.

Just to clarify: use of quotation marks indicates that these terms are highly suspect in the first place, for the reasons anthroid mentions. But we still need to deal with the apparent state of the world. E.g. it may appear that non-whites commit more crimes than whites -- until we look at how crime is defined and how the police enforce the law. But many people, unlike all of us well-read forumites, are puzzled by the empirical facts they observe and will draw the wrong conclusions from those facts. That's not to say that those facts don't exist. They exist but they need to be understood in context. So that's what seemed to me to be rather new and attractive about acrimone's approach: it allows us to say 'how can we explain these facts we observe'? There's no point simply saying 'whites are not smarter' and leaving it at that. It leaves too many 'facts' unexplained.

[acrimone]

See there anthroid, I don't think acrimone was claiming that whites are smarter than non-whites. Notice the parenthetical 'or vice versa'.

* * * *

Just to clarify: use of quotation marks indicates that these terms are highly suspect in the first place, for the reasons anthroid mentions. But we still need to deal with the apparent state of the world. E.g. it may appear that non-whites commit more crimes than whites -- until we look at how crime is defined and how the police enforce the law. But many people, unlike all of us well-read forumites, are puzzled by the empirical facts they observe and will draw the wrong conclusions from those facts. That's not to say that those facts don't exist. They exist but they need to be understood in context. So that's what seemed to me to be rather new and attractive about acrimone's approach: it allows us to say 'how can we explain these facts we observe'? There's no point simply saying 'whites are not smarter' and leaving it at that. It leaves too many 'facts' unexplained.

Umm... yeah.  That's pretty much it, supernumerary.  I do try very hard to actually write what I really mean, but it always helps when smart people explicate.  Thanks for the assist.

[al_wallace]

al_wallace, Irish people do not express, phenotypically, any more red hair, freckles, and fair skin than do most Icelanders, many Brits and Scots, and a plurality of Scandinavians, including the Danes.  If red hair is a marker of "whiteness," please explain the Australian Aborigine tendency toward red hair.  In fact, if dark skin is a marker of "blackness" and, presumably, African heritage, please explain Australian Aborigines, who migrated from Asia (and yet do not have the epicanthal fold).  Please explain the lack of the epicanthal fold among all indigenous American populations other than the Inuit, given the fact that American Indians migrated from Asia.  If someone is of African origin and thus presumably has more and coarser melanin, why are northern Africans "white"?  If the epicanthal fold is a marker of Asian heritage, please explain how the San of the Kalahari desert have it.  Please explain dark skin, a marker I guess of African heritage, among southern--though not northern--South Asian Indians.

I acknowledge that my population choice could have been better, but my point stands that a combination of traits render some populations (historical, if not current--please note this) discernable from others. The San have epicanthic folds and other phenotypic traits that combined, make them discernable at the population level from other groups of people. For any set of traits one can inevitably find exceptions. I'll bet you'll even find some San without epicanthic folds. I wasn't referring to single traits to identify race, but collections of traits--including propensity to carry genes for sickle cell, (or Tay Sachs or whatever), average hair color, average eye color, average height, etc. When you add them together, it gives a set of traits that may represent local adaptations. Clinal variation is an attribute of populations as well. Recent migrations (or even not so recent migrations) mix the gene pool for these populations, but the origin of such traits sometimes indicate adaptations to a local environment. Other times, it is the result of founder effects or other forms of genetic drift--but still give us information about migrations (in this case the genes that the earliest inhabitants of an area had)

In short, al_wallace, biologists may claim the usefulness of "race" for understanding human variation.  Most anthropologists do not, given the numerous examples of how phenotype does NOT explain origin.  We prefer to eliminate race when discussing human variation and use your subterm of biological population, or cline.  That tells us, for instance, that the alleged "race-linked" genetic trait for sickle-cell anemia is not linked to African populations solely but rather is an adaptation to chronic malaria and appears in a number of Mediterranean and Adriatic populations as well (such as Turks and Armenians).  Now, granted, this is a genotype rather than a strict phenotype, but it is expressed after all in sickle cell anemia.  Blood types too seem to be more reliable genetic population markers than skin color is.  Skin color changes among many different populations in reaction to exposure to sunlight.  It is an evolutionary adaptation, but it is not linked to one or the other place specifically.  Therefore, it really is not predictive of population origin.

But a biological use of the term race includes any recognizable set of phenotypes--not just skin color or height. The range of skin color changes in light might be the trait of interest in this case since it is more reliable than strictly skin color in predicting the amount of incidental solar radiation likely to contact the skin of at least a subset of the ancestors for carriers of that trait. Many biologists are interested in reconstructing phylogenetic relationships. Therefore they must reconstruct historical populations and identify the preponderance of traits possessed by those historical populations (races)

al_wallace, I know you're making some of these same points, reading over your posts on the subject.  However, as you point out, the pandemic nature of human reproduction means that "race" has little to no biological meaning any longer.  It predicts nothing.  This is why anthropology has "thrown the baby out with the bath water."  If a concept doesn't work, there is no point in using it any further (kind of like "instinct," which my biologist friends tell me has been abandoned, at least with regard to human behavior, finally too!).

I understand that the distribution of traits in a recent well-mixed population (like say, New York City) has little meaning or predictive power for determining local adaptations to the geographic area of New York...but that isn't what biologists are interested in that study human evolution. They are interested in reconstructing what the adaptations were for a particular group of people with limited migrations.

I also understand abandoning the term "instinct" for humans if you are an anthropologist since the number of stereotyped unlearned behaviors of humans are limited. That isn't the case for many animals that aren't social so biologists still throw the term around.
I agree that terms that aren't useful should be abandoned. Perhaps most anthropologists aren't interested in establishing the origin of particular sets of traits within historical human populations.

Similarly, anthropologists (at least the cultural ones) find culturally-acquired behaviors most interesting. Some might even think they are the only behaviors that humans exhibit. That is where a biologist and anthropologist differ. For example, biologists focus on behaviors of humans that seem to be independent of cultural origin because then the behavior begs for a biological explanation (like the tendency of men to marry woman younger than themselves).

[anthroid]

 From al_wallace:
I acknowledge that my population choice could have been better, but my point stands that a combination of traits render some populations (historical, if not current--please note this) discernable from others.



OK, al_wallace, I take your point, especially about the historical piece.  The problem is that "race" is cognized, in this thread by most, and in the larger population, as related almost solely to skin "color."  While dark and lighter shades of brown, beige, and rosy cheeks or lack of same are clearly adaptations to the amount of sunlight available to a particular human population, you, al, are constructing "race" as more than skin color.  Fair enough.  That is not, however, how it has been discussed historically or, again, in this thread. 

But let's think about history.  How far back are we going?  I mean, the evidence really seems to be clear:  we're all Africans ultimately, since that is where human life began and evolved.  Sure, there is a (very) minority view in anthropology that the "races" evolved separately in Africa, Europe, and Asia (it is called the multi-regional hypothesis and is promoted by Milford Wolpoff most prominently, but most anthropologists do not agree with this rather fantastic and complicated hypothesis since a-the hypothesis requires that the exact same kind of human being to separately evolve in 3 separate locations at more or less the same time, though with some minor variation (skin color, shovel-shaped incisors, epicanthal fold, etc.) and, as a result, doesn't meet the Occam's razor test and b-the evidence for this is so incredibly minimal as to be dismissable). 

But maybe we're not going that far back.  Fair enough.  How about just at the fully developed species level?  Say, 100,000 years ago.  It's quite clear humans were pretty much everywhere continental (along with Neanderthal) and adapting to whatever environment in which they lived, including altering melanin levels, hair type, nose size, height, body fat, etc.  Which traits do you choose?  Why?  How local do you get? 

It cannot be denied that skin color is an immediate eye-catcher.  But what constitutes a race?  What combination of traits?  For every trait you pick, al_wallace, I can give you a human population that doesn't meet your criteria yet would still be called one or the other "race."  That's why the concept, for humans, is so pointless and explains so little.

I think we're actually closer to being on the same page as not.  But "race" really is a socially constructed category (that's just for you, larryc!) that will vary depending on who is constructing the category.  The old "red, white, black, yellow, brown" racial structure didn't work back in the 19th century and it does not work now; it is too political and, even more important, far too inexact to describe real human populations.

And, Lord Wallace, thank you for affirming the idea that, at least for humans (and maybe other social animals but I can't speak about them), "instinct," stereotypical behavior produced in response to a stimulus, is not appropriate in the analysis of human behaviors.  I really think very little of human behavior can be explained as solely instinctual.  But that is, perhaps, a different thread.

However, let me comment on your parenthetical remark about the tendency of men to marry younger women.  I will agree that this is a widespread behavior.  I will not necessarily agree that it is biologically based.  In many patriarchal, patrilineal societies (not the same thing, by the way), girls die at a higher rate than boys, so that men with power snap up younger women as soon as they can.  Why do the girls die?  Because they are culturally devalued (ironic, isn't it, since they bring higher brideprices; but it's because they are scarce).  It is probably a chicken-and-egg question, but I could make as strong a cultural argument for the practice as you could for the biological one.  And, I'll stave off the obvious one:  younger women have a better chance of being fertile.  Not so.  Fertile women--women who have already reproduced--are clearly fertile and therefore are the logical ones for men to choose.  From a strictly reproductive standpoint, it would make sense for men to choose women who have already had babies.  See books by Meredith Small, a Cornell anthropologist, for more details.

In short, though, "people of color," "race," "white," "black," and so forth are profoundly inaccurate terms.  This is why they must be rejected.  It isn't necessarily political correctness.  It is scholarly accuracy at sake here.

supernumerary, I appreciate your defense of acrimone.  However, acrimone did say:

Thus, it may be a biological fact that "whites" (however you define it) are smarter than "non-whites" (or vice versa) but that doesn't mean that this is a necessary trait of whiteness.  To the extent that the observation is (generally) true, it is true simply because that is the way things turned out, evolutionarily speaking.  It doesn't mean that it will always be that way, or that it couldn't have turned out some other way.

....

Maybe whites are smarter, but that doesn't mean you expect any particular white to be smarter than any particular non-white.

In other words, sure, "white" is in quotations.  But acrimone then goes on to say "To the extent that the observation is (generally) true, it is true simply because that is the way things turned out, evolutionarily speaking. "  In other words, I don't believe I've misinterpreted.  acrimone in fact is trying to argue that whites are smarter than non-whites.  It is NOT generally or specifically true that "whites," as a population, are smarter than anyone else.  Period.  It is not in fact the way things have turned out.  Now, perhaps this is not what acrimone meant to say, and that's just dandy.  But the prose is what it is.

And, for those of you young'uns who haven't read much history, it used to be said (back in the 1950s) that them there Jews were mighty fine basketball players, and it must be something in their racial characteristics.  I do hope, al_wallace, that we aren't considering such a widely varying group of religious adherents a "race."

Or are we?

[supernumerary]

However, acrimone did say:

Thus, it may be a biological fact that "whites" (however you define it) are smarter than "non-whites" (or vice versa) but that doesn't mean that this is a necessary trait of whiteness.  To the extent that the observation is (generally) true, it is true simply because that is the way things turned out, evolutionarily speaking.  It doesn't mean that it will always be that way, or that it couldn't have turned out some other way.

....

Maybe whites are smarter, but that doesn't mean you expect any particular white to be smarter than any particular non-white.

... In other words, I don't believe I've misinterpreted.  acrimone in fact is trying to argue that whites are smarter than non-whites.  It is NOT generally or specifically true that "whites," as a population, are smarter than anyone else.  Period.  It is not in fact the way things have turned out.  Now, perhaps this is not what acrimone meant to say, and that's just dandy.  But the prose is what it is.

Well, I'll leave it to acrimone to say whether that's what he was trying to argue. But here's the important point: the facts are what they are. People believe the evidence of their own eyes, and the facts appear to call for an explanation. The fact is that whites come out 'smarter' when society's tests are applied. It is in this sense that I took the statement to be 'generally' true. Though of course there are many things wrong with the tests, for sure. For one, they don't take context (historical, political, cultural, etc) into account. That doesn't change the fact that society has such 'tests' and 'whites' 'generally' come out smarter on these 'tests'. Take for example that CHE article about only 4 black math PhDs in a given year. That's a fact. Another fact is that one's gotta be smart to do PhD math. So the fact appears to be that whites are smarter. But the test - how many math PhDs - would be meaningless in itself. It doesn't prove that 'whites' inherently have a better capacity to do math. It is because explanations are complex that people attach too much importance to the simple 'facts' about race as they see them, e.g. the crime statistics, or the state of affairs in Africa. To say that there's no scientific evidence of racial superiority works for most people, I think (well, if they're reasonably good and intelligent people) but racism persists because too many people superficially and uncritically trust the 'facts' which appear to them to be self-evident.

 

[helpful]

I would love to have Al Wallace tell us what Jews are in "racial categorization". The main problem I have with his argument is not around the biological science, but that any discussion of "race" in these times has to be considered as happening within a political and social context where the word is problematic.

Let's say Al is right about the biology. Why does he have to use the term "race" with all that it implies in many communities and nations?

I just find the term too problematic to engender dialogue. Plus, as I pointed out with reference to Jews, the term is very problematic. (And there are 'black" jews, so if Al is saying Jews are part of the "white" race, then what are "black jews"? And what are the Falasha?

By the way, I noted somewhere that Al Wallace is some famous person. Who is he?

[anthroid]

Alfred Russell Wallace was a friend of Darwin's; it is thought that he developed the theory of natural selection before Darwin did and certainly the two knew each other's ideas.  I believe he was titled "Lord," though that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

The term "race" is problematic because it is too inexact.  helpful, your discussion of varieties of Jews make the point precisely.  That's why cline or population is the better term.  It will not include all the folks being discussed here in "neat" groups--such as "white" or "black"--but it seems to me that maturity of thought and psyche allows for, if not welcomes, complexity of thought rather than simplistic answers.

supernumerary, you are wrong.  "Whites" do not on average score higher on standardized tests than "non-whites."  Certainly in California, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Washington, and in fact generally speaking nation-wide, Asians and Asian-Americans score higher than European-Americans, particularly in math and science.  Additionally, something that caused great consternation after WWII was the documented fact that northern African-Americans outscored European-American southerners on standardized tests.  And, as I pointed out earlier, in England, Irish immigrants score lower on IQ and other standardized tests than do native-born English folks, regardless of skin color.  What does come into play in England is class position.  Those in lower socioeconomic classes score on average lower than those in higher socioenonomic classes.  Discussions of standardized testing need to lose this inexact term "race" and focus on class.

supernumerary, your argument as well that there are small numbers of African-Americans taking math Ph.D.s because they are somehow less smart than European-Americans is a flawed one.  This does not prove smartness or lack of same.  Lawrence Summers tried to argue that women are big old stoopid-heads (as grasshopper would say) when it comes to math and science; he has been proven incorrect, roundly.  Math or science success has nothing to do, at least by itself, with supposedly intrinsic smartness or dumbness.  It has to do with exposure to the subjects by competent teachers who encourage excellence regardless of class, gender, or ethnic group.  I can think of lots of reasons why African-Americans don't get Ph.D.s in math, and none of them have to do with African-Americans being mathematically challenged as a result of some allegedly shared genetic background (which, given the systematic rape of African-American female slaves by European-American men, doesn't even exist in this country--that is, the notion that the African-American population is somehow an isolated gene pool about which we can draw conclusions is, quite simply, too fantastic for words).

Now, I know that neither supernumerary nor acrinome are trying to forward racist (and fundamentally incorrect) arguments because they actually believe in the superiority of European-Americans.  That clearly is not the tenor of their remarks.  Instead, they are trying to puzzle out what appears to be fact.  However, part of what we're meant to do as educated folks is uncover evidence and data.  "People" may see some limited results and draw conclusions.  Those conclusions are flawed, and the people are wrong. 

I really do appreciate this discussion.  It is one of the most stimulating I've had in a very long time.  Thanks for providing the space, and the patience for what are sometimes arcane details. 

[prytania3]

Thus, it may be a biological fact that "whites" (however you define it) are smarter than "non-whites" (or vice versa) but that doesn't mean that this is a necessary trait of whiteness.  To the extent that the observation is (generally) true, it is true simply because that is the way things turned out, evolutionarily speaking.  It doesn't mean that it will always be that way, or that it couldn't have turned out some other way.

....

Maybe whites are smarter, but that doesn't mean you expect any particular white to be smarter than any particular non-white.

I think the accurate term for this is "sarcasm."