Talk:Race

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Race is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute.

	Pending tasks for [[Template:Articlespace:Race]]: (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Race&action=purge)	edit (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Race/to_do&action=edit) - watch (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Race/to_do&action=watch) - purge (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Race&action=purge)
	Talk:Race/to do

Contents

1 Archives of previous discussions

2 Plato?

3 Contemporary views on race

4 Edit controversy

5 The Article Should Be Normalized

6 Geography predicts human genetic diversity

11 New paper on human origins

Archives of previous discussions

Previous discussion of this article are archived here:

Talk:Race (Archive 1), Talk:Race (Archive 2)
Talk:Race (Archive 3), Talk:Race (Archive 4)
Talk:Race (Archive 5), Talk:Race (Archive 6)
Talk:Race (Archive 7), Talk:Race (Archive 8)
Talk:Race (Archive 9), Talk:Race (Archive 10)
Talk:Race (Archive 11), Talk:Race (Archive 12)
Talk:Race (Archive 13), Talk:Race (Archive 14)
Talk:Race (Archive 15), Talk:Race (Archive 16)
Talk:Race (Archive 17), Talk:Race (Archive 18)

Please add new content at the end. If several threads develop, they can later be moved to appropriate sections.

Plato?

Rikurzhen, I question your adding "Platonic" to modify essentialism. Certainly Plato offered an essentialist theory -- but so did others. Aristotle's ontology is essentialist but based on a very different epistemology than Plato's. There are many different kinds of essentialisms and I do not see why we need to modify the term (I either do not understand or do not agree with the reasons you suggest above). If you had some document in which Linneaus actually appealed to Plato, you will have convinced me. But how do you know he wasn't essentialist in an Aristotelian or in some other way? Slrubenstein 20:52, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the problem I had, and I think the solution is to offer both terms to describe the essentialist POV. What exactly the "essentialists" meant by race is not 100% clear to me, but Platonic essentialism seems to be a good example of what they might have thought; although I agree with you that it may be too narrow. I saw the need for some kind of qualification to distinguish between imminant realism (from the late 20th centry) versus transcendental realism (Platonic) about universals; because just saying essentialist is too broad a description. For example, I can imagine a contemporary (e.g., lineage) description of races as natural kinds, and those kinds have "essential" properties in the immimant realism sense. So what we need is something more precise than "essential" and less specific than "Platonic" and until we can figure out what that is, I figured we can offer both terms in order to shoot for a meaningful average. --Rikurzhen 23:07, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that what you are calling the imminant realist sense is essentialist, but maybe I do not know what you mean. Essentialism definitely does not mean that words and the semantic categories humans use in communicating are stable. If I have a clear definition of a chair and you show me an apple and I say, "no, that is not a chair, to be called a chair an object must have the following features..." I am not necessarily being essentialist. The problem is that when Aristotle developed his approach to ontology (and of course this goes for Plato too) they did not have Darwin's theory of evolution and Mendelian genetics. The article on universals you cite invokes Heraclitus (you can't step in the same river twice). It is ture that people today still use this example to make a point about one way of viewing the world. Everyone knows that rivers flow; the question is, is "a river" the course that it takes, or the actual water flowing through it? This is what Heraclitus was really getting at. But species (in the Darwinian account) are not comparable to rivers. Creationists and Linneaus are good examples of essentialists, because their notion of "species" is that they are unchanging. Aand examples of the species that deviate from the norm are, well, deviant. Whereas in Darwinian thought you couldn't have evolution were it not for those deviations; Darwin's understanding of species is radically different in that species are mutable, and unusual examples of a species are not necessarily freaks. In the study of human evolution we define H. habilus and H. erectus as two distinct species and for the sake of communication we need to have clear-cut definitions. But we (scientists) all know that in reality there were creatures with some degree of variation, and over time the characteristics of a population of these creatures changes and at some point we say "Ah! H. erectus." This is non-essentialist. But you know, most people (non-scientists) I think still use an essentialist view -- that is why they could even conceive of some fossil they called "the missing link." That is why some people think evolution means we are descended from chimps which (they say) is absurd because no chimp has ever given birth to a human. Anyway, I admit that the essentialist article is not great but I don't see the damage that is done in leaving it as is, and hoping that in time people will improve that article. Slrubenstein 23:26, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the misspelling. That should have been "immanent realism". Here's a definition that disambiguates it from Platonic realism about universals. --Rikurzhen 23:44, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

According to immanent realism, there are universals in the spatiotemporal world quite independently of language and the mind. The existence of these universals, furthermore, is not dependent upon there being Platonic universals existing outside the spatiotemporal world.

Well, I think the essentialism being rejected is both "Platonic" and "immanent realism." For example, creationists believe that there is a real thing called "horse;" God created it the way it is ("God brought forth living creatures according to their kinds ("kinds" being like species). Darwinianists understand the category (or "kind" or "species") "horse" to be fundamentally a statistical phenomenon; actual horses are the result of mutable frequencies of particular genes. This contradicts both of the types of essentialisms you mention. Slrubenstein 19:01, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I really don't think that they were arguing against immanent realism since that philosophy seems to have emerged in the late 1960s. From my reading, the contemporary alternative to immanent realism is nominalism. There doesn't seem to be anything in the discussion of race that would favor immanent realism over nominalism -- the question of which is whether universals exist or only particualars exist -- but I could be missing something. The immanent realists seem to have a very fine-grained spatiotemporal concept of kinds (universals/types) as things that can come into and out of existance depending on what particulars exists in the world, rather than the eternal/transcendental view of Platonism/creationism/etc. --Rikurzhen 19:33, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate your desire to avoid anachronism, and, since I am not really familiar with the philosophers to whom you refer, I have to defer to you. But one point/question: is it just the name (immanent realism) and the philosophical study that are new, or is it really the idea itself that is new? Isn't it possible for scientists to have shared assumptions about reality and their objects of study long before philosophers gave a name to those assumptions? In any event, my main point is that pre-Darwinian scientists were probably essentialists in non-platonic ways. Slrubenstein 20:08, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the history of philosophy to say for certain that Armstrong was the first to write of the basic idea behind immanent realism -- the notion that universals exist, but not outside of their particulars -- and I'm sure that some pre-Darwinians were non-Platonists -- but I think we can get away with offering Platonism as a prominent example of the pre-20th century thinking about races (as immutable kinds). And yes, I suspect most scientists have a largely shared, but un-examined philosophy, but I'm not enough of a student of philosophy to say for certain whether scientists are decided on immanent realism versus nominalism. I, as one scientist, think that realism about universals makes more sense to the way I talk and think about science; which is why as you said I would prefer to avoid anachronism. Hopefully, someone will come along who knows more about this and straighten it out if I'm wrong. --Rikurzhen 21:00, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Contemporary views on race

I started a new sub-article: Contemporary views on race. It is in need of two things: a comprehensive list of major views, and a good list of questions/topics that will distinguish the views. --Rikurzhen 01:58, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Edit controversy

Jalnet, stop putting in weasel words. We have discussed this topic for a month. You have yet to provide any sources to support your claims, You are wrong, and since you still refuse to provide sources, I infer simply ignorant. Why don't you work on an article about a topic you know something about? Slrubenstein 19:15, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You, not I, are guilty of using weasel words, as I have already explained ad nauseam above. And please defend your deletion of the word "some". Jalnet2 19:29, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I deleted two "somes" First, I have no evidence of any scientists who hold an essentialist view of race. Second, I have no evidence of any anthropologists who believe that race, language, and culture are isomorphic. Not one. Now, if you want to add "some," you must provide examples of scientists who have an essentialist view of race, and anthropologists (in the 20th century) who believe that race, language, and culture are isomorphic. You have never provided evidence. Put up, or shut up. Slrubenstein 19:48, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Au contraire, mon ami. You are required to prove the statement that you inserted. By your logic, the latter two paragraphs of the introduction should simply be deleted. In fact, I will delete them if you do not prove them. Jalnet2 20:10, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I do not have to prove it because (1) it is common knowledge and (2) how do you prove the absence of something? Here is my proof: read every issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology -- read them all, because I am claiming that they all agree with my point. There is your evidence. Now how about you? Prove your point. Slrubenstein 20:13, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If it is common knowledge, why can't you prove it? You do not have to prove the absence of something; you need to prove that the rejection in the statement "...evolutionary scientists have rejected..." exists. I can disprove this statement by providing a counterexample; in this case, notable examples of scientists who have not "rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races" include Kevin MacDonald and J. Philippe Rushton. Jalnet2 20:30, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I just did prove it -- I told you to read every copy of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Also, you did not disprove it. First, MacDonald and Rushton are not evolutionary scientists. They were not trained in paleoanthropology or population genetics or evolutionary biology. They have never done original research in paleoanthropology or population genetics or evolutionary biology. They ae psychologists. Second, where do they state that races are "essential" or that they espouse an essentialist view of race? Slrubenstein 20:52, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

They have published work on evolutionary science and are well known in the field. I never said they state that they hold the essentialist view of race. I said they never rejected it according to the essentialist view. Other examples I can point to include Gerhard Meisenberg and Vincent Sarich. Jalnet2 21:12, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Anyone can write about evolution -- that does not make them an evolutionary scientist. They have not published in the journals of evolutionary scientists and they are not cited by evolutionary scientists (accept as examples of racists). Meisenberg is a biochemist, not an evolutionary scientists; Vincent Sarich counts -- but he does not hold to an essentialist view of race. The sentence that you keep vandalizing states that "Since the 1940s, some evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races." Since Rushton and MacDonald are not evolutionary scientists, they do not provide evidence that some evolutionary scientists do subscribe to essentialist views. Moreover, you still have not shown how any of these people accept the essentialist view of race. Slrubenstein 21:16, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't have to show that they hold essentialist views. I only have to show that they never rejected them, in order to provide a counterexample to proves the statement false. Sarich is a co-creator of the Mitochondrial Eve theory and the molecular clock hypothesis; his pioneering work in human evolution certainly qualifies him as an evolutionary scientist. Jalnet2 21:34, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The mitochondrial Eve model is based on a notion of race that is fundamentally opposed to essentialist categories. Your own statement is evidence that he rejects essentialist views of race. Slrubenstein 21:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how you can interpret the mitochondrial Eve theory. The bottom line is that Sarich does not reject the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races. Jalnet2 21:46, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rushton, MacDonald and Sarich all appear to be pretty far out of the mainstream. Rushton is a joke. MacDonald defends Irving the holocaust denier, and Sarich defends The Bell Curve, which apart from being racist is just bad science - and someone who defends bad science just isn't credible. So they are all tainted witnesses. Regardless, even if their opinions are valid, they do not represent the mainstream. Using the word some to describe mainstream thought is misleading. Guettarda 22:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So your defense is to engage in character assassination? Despite the fact that Sarich has made large and well-known contributions to the human evolutionary theory, he is still not mainstream? Even if the scientists are not mainstream (and they most certainly are; Geoffrey Cowley of Newsweek called the Bell Curve "overwhelmingly mainstream") that still doesn't prove that "evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races." Jalnet2 23:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't see how this is character assassination. I have said nothing about your character. I don't know you. I don't know what kind of a person you are. I would not presume to judge based on this exchange. As for Rushton, MacDonald, and Sarich, I can only go by the evidence that is available to me. Rushton is a joke - IQ tests are only meaningful within the culture in which they are written, they cannot be used between cultures. If you base an idea on a profoundly flawed metric, you have no credibility. If he had not been a psychologist, I might be more forgiving...one can forgive ignorance. He obviously knows better and still based an idea on a flawed metric. Not very credible. The Bell Curve is just bad science - it draws conclusions that are inappropriate from the data, it omits key data, it ignores key variables...if a scientist goes out of his way to defend a scientifically flawed work, it suggests that they are letting politics overwhelm science. Newsweek is not exactly a scientific journal - and comments made in October 1994 (just a month after the book was published) aren't credible - the press fawns over every new "controvertial" book. If the correct word is "most" and you replace it with "some" you have created a biased picture of the facts. To provide a biased picture of the facts is inaccurate, and thus not appropriate for Wikipedia. Guettarda 00:17, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I said you were engaging in character assassination against the scientists, not me. Anyway, it doesn't matter if your opinion is that Rushton is a joke, or if you have qualms about the Bell Curve. The fact is, there are some scientists who have not rejected the idea of race, whether on an essentialist basis or not, and this is what the dispute is about. The word "some" should be inserted before the statement "evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential (e.g., Platonic) characteristics" because as has been clearly shown, there are scientists for which this does not apply.

By the way, my opinion is that "race does not exist" movements are a joke; does that give me the right to delete all references to it from the encyclopedia? My opinion is that some of the "scientists" who push those ideas aren't credible because they were Marxists and Marxism has been discredited; does that mean that references to their opinions should be deleted from the encyclopedia? Jalnet2 00:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I apologise - I have a bad habit of putting things too starkly,and it's probably even worse when it is in writing rather than spoken...not that I think the comments were undeserved. But anyway - I agree with your comment there are some scientists who have not rejected the idea of race, whether on an essentialist basis or not - my point is, if you insert the word some it appears that this group is in the minority. In fact, if you look at the literature, if you look at the opinions of scientists who work in that field, it isn't a minority who reject - or at least question pretty heavily - the idea of "race". Obviously there are those who do accept the idea. The people you have cited are not very credible in this area because their past actions have reflected a bias that suggests a political agenda outweighing a scientific one, but I'm sure one could find a good number of others. But the point is, if most people have that view, it's inaccurate to characterise that as some. Of course, it's also inaccurate to say every last one or all hold this position. Everything I have read suggests that it is a minority who still accept the idea of race. The examples you have cited strengthen that opinion.

As for your comment: my opinion is that "race does not exist" movements are a joke; does that give me the right to delete all references to it from the encyclopedia? - I have not made any attempt to delete references to Rushton. I have made no edits regarding Rushton, here or anywhere else.

As to your other comment: My opinion is that some of the "scientists" who push those ideas aren't credible because they were Marxists and Marxism has been discredited; does that mean that references to their opinions should be deleted from the encyclopedia? - if you can demonstrate that [named scientists] have based their research on flawed metrics, flawed methodology, then I think you are in a good position to question their research. Also, if you find a someone saying something like "the Soviet Union was a wonderful, freedom-loving regime" you can feel free to laugh at them and ridicule them. I would join you in doing so. And, if someone were to later cite them as an authority on what consitutes a "freedom-loving regime, it would be reasonable to question their veracity. On the other hand, if they held the consensus view on something unrelated to that, then it would not be reasonable to discredit the consensus view on the basis of their statements in a disticnt field. Guettarda 01:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've just reverted Cheesedreams' latest edit. Wikipedia is being very slow for me today, so I wasn't able to check out all the previous versions to decide which I ought to revert to. I therefore reverted to Slrubenstein's last version, as I know he's a long-term, major contributer to this page. SlimVirgin 22:45, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Guettarda, it is clear now that Jalnet@ knows nothing of science and is pushing a political agenda. It doesn't matter whether a scientists' politics are left or right -- what matters is whether the science itself is good or bad. MacDonald and Rushton are simply bad scientists. And Jalnet2 cannot read. The opening sentence specifies evolutionary scientists -- it does not claim "all scientists," only evolutionary scientists. And it states that they reject the essentialist view of race. If Jalnet2 thinks that Sarich has not rejected this view of race, it can only be because Jalnet2 is so ignorant about science that he cannot understand what Sarich is doing. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Article Should Be Normalized

First of all, the primary article on "race" should be about the clearest current definition(s) of that word. For example, the US Census defines "race" by self-identification on a Census form. When you measure "whites per capita" it is a well-defined number the utility of which may be in doubt but which nevertheless has scientific validity simply because it is well defined. Another clear current definition of "race" is Fst. Even Lewontin has used this definition, if for no other reason than to attempt to debunk its scientific utility (note I did not say validity). These valid definitions should then link to separate articles focusing on their respective subjects.

Secondly, the history of confused definitions of 'race' have relevance here precisely as the confused definitions of 'heat' have relevance: we may be interested in the ways people get confused about the concept of 'heat' -- as, for example, phlogiston -- but it is intellectually dishonest to try to saddle the best current definitions of 'heat' with the entire history of humanity's errors in the struggle for truth -- and that is true even if there are some folks who still hold to the phlogiston theory. A prime example of the violation of this is the arcane reference to Platonic "essentialism" at the start of the article as though it has current relevance. Jim Bowery

I regard your relationship with Stormfront [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVotes_for_deletion%2FJewish_ethnocentrism&diff=10057125&oldid=10056558) as problematic in terms of you attempting to influence this article's contents. I'll be accused of argumentum ad hominem, but such arguments are sometimes valid. SlimVirgin 22:45, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

My counter argument is as always that there is a built-in bias on "race" which trumps any supposed counter-bias arguments. You cannot deny that in an environment where the government enforces a particular viewpoint that people who may be active in promoting alternate viewpoints may have to be allowed to contribute to articles in which they are interested. Claims of neutrality are always more suspect than are the motives of those who profess non-neutrality but never more so than when the government is throwing people in prisons over the issue. Jim Bowery 23:30, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not in this case. The fact that Jalnet2 keeps insisting that some people accept the essentialist notion of race is evidence enough that some still do. In any event, to say that evolutionary scientists have come to reject this view is an accurate statement and violates no standards of good writing. Secondly, the claim that the article should be about the "clearest" definition violates our NPOV policy, as what is "clearest" depends on one's point of view. NPOV requires that we provide accounts of all major, credible views -- even if the result is several definitions of race. The notion that self-identity has scientific validity because it is clearly denied is simply not so. For one thing, there is considerable data concerning contridictions in how people self-identify. Also, what does it mean to be "scientifically" valid? The example of self-definition given above is explicitly political, as it reflects the US census. It is no surprise that people in other societies define race differently, and that scientists (as opposed to politicians and policy-makers) have other definitions. In this context, the US census definition is by no means "the clearest." Slrubenstein | Talk 23:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jalnet2 is not a citable authority. Come up with a cite of someone who has provided an operational definition of "essentialist race" that is currently used by some received authority and I'll retract my statement about essentialism. Otherwise it belongs in the same place with regard to the race article as phlogiston occupies with respect to the article on heat. Secondly, as to what does it mean to for a definition to be scientifically valid is simply this: It is clear enough to be reproducible? Self-identification is open to doubts only to the extent that people answer one way at one time and another way at another time but this is hardly a serious practical problem in terms of reproducibility. Fst is open to doubts only to the extent that measurements of gene frequencies and resulting calculations are not reproducible.Jim Bowery 23:30, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You ignore my point. I know of no one who has an operationalizable essentialist definition of race. This is one reason scientists have rejected it -- which is exactly the point made in the article (scientists have rejected it). I do not see why you are spending so much time criticzing one sentence of the article. My mention of Jalnet2 was only in response to your suggestion that it is arcane and lacking relevance. I did not mention Jalnet2 as a citable source -- I mentioned him as an example, to show you that people still exist who believe in an essentialist view of race. That is reason enough for the article to devote one entire whole sentence to informing readers that scientists have rejected this view. I do not see any grounds for your suggestion that the sentence does not belong in the article. As for "clear enough to be reproducible," you can go ahead and believe that if you want. I know of no scientist who would agree. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:57, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I addressed your point when I said "it [essentialist race] belongs in the same place with regard to the race article as phlogiston occupies with respect to the article on heat." Furthermore I'm not criticizing just one sentence but the structure of the entire article in its obsession with paper tigers while there are serious conflicts going on about race. As for "scientists" you know -- if they think Reproducibility isn't the touchstone of science then they aren't scientists at all. Jim Bowery 00:17, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You misunderstand science. Experiments should be reproducible. The fact that others use the same definition is not enough to make something scientific. What are the paper tigers to which you refer? Slrubenstein | Talk 00:49, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, you misunderstand what I said. I said reproducible definitions were scientifically valid. As for paper tigers, you just raised one with me by saying that I said scientifically valid definitions were sufficient to in themselves for science. Of course I didn't say that, and of course the article is chalk-full of paper tigers because you are a dominant presence in the writing of the article. Jim Bowery 02:03, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Geography predicts human genetic diversity

Someone may want to add this to the article [2] (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/cp-gph030305.php). Here's the ref: Current Biology, Vol 15, R159-R160, 8 March 2005 [3] (http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0960982205002095) --Rikurzhen 17:58, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

doubling

can somebody with an overview of recent changes un-double the article? (at first, I thought, omfg has it grown! :) dab (ᛏ) 18:14, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

done; that's happened a few times recently. --Rikurzhen 19:35, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Puzzling changes

I'm puzzled by this diff [4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race&diff=next&oldid=10996322) - the entry in which the changes are being made is not present in the previous version of the page [5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race&oldid=10996322). How can you make changes to something that wasn't there to begin with?

In addition, you should check out those links. IMO they are inappropriate, but I'd like a second opinion. Guettarda 19:39, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Disputed passage

I removed the following words a while back, and have now received feedback to the effect that my removal of the passage is not appreciated.

Social scientists have argued that this shift is motivated by political and religious perceptions, and not by science. They cite as an example the self-assertion by Jews that they are a distinct race from 'Arabs'. This claim is based upon a religious belief of lineal descent from someone who lived nearly 4,000 years ago named Abraham and his son, Issac. The counterweight supposition is that all Arabs are descended from Abraham's other son, Ishmael. Scientifically, it is nonsensical, but it is the foundation of the Jewish religion, nation and 'race'. Welcome to a new dimension of discussion of the very old human perception of race.

This passage was added by changing the ending of the original paragraph:

Many anthropologists, drawing on such biological research, think common race definitions, or any race definitions pertaining to humans are without taxonomic validity. They argue that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, and that the races observed vary according to the culture examined. They further maintain that race is best understood as a social construct. Some scientists have argued that this shift is motivated more by political than scientific reasons.

So the idea that was revised by the other contributor was that primarily political reasons were behind the shift to a "social constructionist" view of [race]. The political reasons, according to the version that I reverted, depend on a religious view held by both Jews and Arabs. It seems pretty obvious to me that the Jews and the Arabs are being blamed for a shift from the assertion that [races] are "real" to the assertion that [races] are socially constructed. That idea conflicts with the writer's own assertion that biological inheritance is the rationale for Jews and Arabs to assert that they are different races.

If the Jews and the Arabs take events recorded in religious texts to determine their view of race (in ignorance, in defiance, or whatever of scientific research), to do so is an instance of social construction of race. In fact, it could be a rather blatant example if the two groups asserted a great disparity between the inherited characteristics of members of each of the two groups. But the [fact] that the two groups make these two socially constructed [races] does not make them people who push for a social-constructionist view of [race]. Quite the contrary.

Besides being logically inconsistent, as I have outlined above, the passage I removed is, IMHO, an instance of the "Jewish conspiracy" hysteria that imagines that on the basis of some power not available to other people the Jews can influence all sorts of things -- including scientists who would otherwise realize that there really are [racial] differences. -- But it is by this account the Jews and the Arabs who want to maintain the reality of [races], no?

What the Jews and the Arabs happen to think about [race] might be appropriate to mention somewhere in the article, I'd have to see a coherent and NPOV discussion to have an opinion on that score. But I think it is entirely inappropriate to put in the general introduction to this article a provocative statement such as: "Scientifically, it is nonsensical, but it is the foundation of the Jewish religion, nation and 'race'. Welcome to a new dimension of discussion of the very old human perception of race." It tends to frame the entire article as though it is a propaganda piece by Jewish and Arab ideologists. P0M 20:04, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(P.S. I'll hash this out here, not on my talk page, since it concerns everybody. P0M 20:04, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC))

I agree with your points. I changed "anthropologists" to "evolutionary and social scientists" which is more inclusive and accurate. As the paragraph now stands, I think it is precise and accurate. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:24, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The addition is uncited and appears inaccurate as well; this is a Jew-hater's view being attributed to Jews, not a Jewish view of themselves. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:17, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Faith, Humility

Just stopping by, as I seem to do every few months. I dunno... the article has improved in many ways since its elevation to FA status, but I hesitate to say it's net improved. Most of the really clear, incisive sentences have disappeared, bowing to super-careful, almost whispered phrases. For instance, the old mention of the apparent ethnic/racial basis of many genetic disorders (Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, etc.,.) is gone. The inclusion of solid relevant facts like that made this article a real thought provoker. Now it's like one must tiptoe through...I wish people would put some real weight on the text appearing at the top of every FA Talk page: "(This) is a Featured Article. We believe it is one of the best examples of the Wikipedia community's work. Changes should not be made lightly, as you will be altering text and/or a thematic progression that by consensus is already of very high quality. Even so, improvement is always possible, particularly by addition of new, interesting text or graphics."... You should have confined yourselves mostly to adding new material. Have some faith in community consensus and be humble enough to let existing FA text stand. If I really get motivated I'll be back to restore a whole truckload of sentences, and even paragraphs, from the FA version. Where redundancies are created, the newer stuff will go. JDG 01:18, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Do you know what date the article was awarded FA status? I'd like to see that version. --Rikurzhen 01:32, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

With all due respect, JDG is overstating things quite a bit when he mentions community consensus. This has almost always been a highly contentious article and if anything, it is this current version that has achieved community consensus as it has not changed, in any major way, for quite some time. Slrubenstein | Talk 02:50, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't doubt that you're right. But I often wonder if these especially long articles don't disuade most people from reading them at all. Any clue about that date? --Rikurzhen 03:01, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I found the FA version. The current version is prima facia superior. What is missing? --Rikurzhen 03:37, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

As I said above, I agree there are many improvements (and some glaring weaknesses that have been righted). Even so, there were many individual sentences/paragraphs in the FA version that brought the crux of the debate home to the reader in a far more powerful way than anything in the current version. If I can sit down to a major edit you will see the full enumeration. In the meantime, what do you think about the race/ethnicity linkage of certain genetic disorders? It got its due in the FA version as an important issue (which it most certainly is). It seems it's just too stark for the current version. A pity. JDG 08:54, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that many people in health related fields (i.e. physicians but many more) closely identify race (NOT ethnicity, which is cultural, although I know many people use the two words interchangably i.e. without precision) and disease. I have no problem with the article acknowledging this. However, it must be made clear that this is a convenience for practicioners, not researchers, and to the extent that there is a very high correlation this is usually true in a particular locale. For example, people in southern Italy also have the sickel cell gene -- malaria was a threat not only in Africa but in the mediterranean. For historical reasons involving migration patterns among other things, in the US we identified SSA with Blacks. An evolutionary scientist or population geneticist would not do this. S/he would know that in certain parts of the world "Black" is isomorphic with a population, but in other parts it is not (it overlaps with other populations or is actually a conglomerate of diverse populations). Slrubenstein | Talk 15:32, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

The medical discussion now mostly resides in Race in biomedicine. --Rikurzhen 15:40, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

This is why I'm against this movement to limit length of major articles. The whole encyclopedia is turning into a big link chase. Sub-articles should mostly be confined to expanded definitions of terms. Instead, we tear most of the the centrally interesting topics out of major articles and pile them into sub-articles far fewer readers will visit, leaving the major articles like this one: well-written, well-considered, balanced, concise, forgettable... What's more, Race in biomedicine is wholly inadequate. No mention is made there of the most clear-cut examples of apparent ethnic/racial basis of genetic disorders/conditions (Tay Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, Lactose Intolerance, etc.,.) JDG 18:52, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Umm... not to nit pick, but CF is mentioned in Race in biomedicine. I focused on quantiative traits more than Mendelian traits because they are more common. Also, I had to mostly write the article on my own and fend off people who wanted to delete stuff. So please add things here or there where it's missing. But as far as talking about biomedicine in this article, it should be less emphasized than multilocus DNA evidence, which more directly addresses the question of race. --Rikurzhen 01:21, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

New paper on human origins

This really needs to be added to the article: --Rikurzhen 01:34, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Vinayak Eswaran, Henry Harpending and Alan R. Rogers, Genomics refutes an exclusively African origin of humans, Journal of Human Evolution, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 6 May 2005. [6] (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WJS-4G3SC6X-1/2/aae7c2810f0d87628e228363c0e1bd66)

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