Differences between races and the new terminology

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This is something I have been trying to dope out for a long time because it presents a bit of a conundrum in my mind as the the differences between language, definition and the inherent need today to 'relabel' things so that they are not 'offensive' to some. Today's good label will just evolve into tomorrow's bad label as it will be associated with exactly the same thing. The thing does not change, the reaction to the label does over time.

This is the lastest article I read and it kinda steams me. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/no-s ... html?nhp=1

And, I like Bill Nye. I was a devotee to his PBS show in the 90s.

My basic posit is this:

Race does exist. It is not speciation. If race did not exist, forensic anthropologists would not be able to look at a skeleton and see those differences. There are commonalities and differences even within each race. Not all Chinese are small (Yao Ming anyone?) and not all black people play basketball well (Just about most everybody I know).

Race is not the social construct it is, and has been, made out to be (a reason to demean an entire people). It is simply physiological/morphological differences between people caused by evolutionary changes that diverged due to isolation, difference in climates, etc, etc. They did not become less human....just different shaped and proportioned due to evolutionary processes.

This new term, 'tribalism' ticks me off because it is blurring the lines between biology and social construction. Tribalism is cultural where race is biological.

The study they indicated only proved that people of a common culture understood their reactions better than those that were not of their culture. Even little things can really separate us culturally by way of understanding those minute differences.

It just seems so convoluted.

I mean, we don't have this argument for any other species that has any form of 'breed'. An Arabian horse is not a Morgan Horse by any stretch of the imagination and a Morgan Horse is not a Clydesdale. But, nobody claims they are 'tribal' and that is their difference. They are just simply horses just as we are just simply humans.

And, a horse is not a mule, is not a donkey, is not a zebra, is not a pony. Those are different species.

What we call "race" would be called "breed" if we were talking about cats, dogs, and horses - differences in appearance, anatomy, and temperament between bloodlines of a single species that are not taxonomically significant; but that are culturally and socially significant, instead.

Billy Nye is saying that " the concept of race has no scientific meaning (ie there are no races except as social constructs").

You dont have to agree with it, but its not hard to understand, nor is it a new idea.

A) human biological variation is real. But that variation doesnt necessary occur in predictable clumps- there isnt proven concordence in variation that indicates that there underlying entities like "races" that subdivide the species.

B) Humans divide each other into "races" based upon a small number of traits, and these are traits that have cultural and social importance (largely because they are external and highly visible). We pigeonhole each other by race via hair type, eye shape, nose shape, and skin color. We dont class folks into race by blood type, nor by lactose tolerence, nor by the shape of incisors (even those traits are also inheritable, and also vary geographically as much as any other).

C) Human do divide other species into subdivisions.Domestic plant and animal species are subdivided into "breeds" by laymen, and zoologist and botonists used to subdivide wild animal and plant species into "subspecies". You might argue that "breeds" and "subspecies" are the same thing as "races" in humans. Maybe yes. Maybe no.

The trouble with domestic "breeds" is that they are just that -organisms purposely bred by humans for human purposes. In contrast human races, and subspecies of wild nonhuman species presumably evolved naturally through local adaptation.

Scientists have been abandoning the concept of "subspecies" largely because of some of the same problems the concept of "subspecies" has with the concept of "race".Among those common problems being the problem of proving concordence of traits. Also with nonhuman subspecies its the human scientists who do the classifying. We pin the butterfly specimens to the wall to classify them by gawking at the subtle differences in their pretty wing patterns. The butterflies dont tell us "dont lump me with THAT butterfly. I dont want MY caterpillers going to school with their caterpillars!". So its not exactly analogous to how humans divide humans into races.

And BTW the hardest thing for a forensic scientist to figure out from your bones is your "race". Loose your soft tissue and they can tell your gender, age, and health at time of death, fairly readily. But race can be difficult.

I don't believe there are "races" per se. I do believe they are social constructs.

I believe there are regional differences within our species, through adaptation to such things as heat and cold. And to other aspect of their peculiar environment.

These differences are usually more pronounced the more isolated a certain group is from other groups. Australian Aborigines, to some, look very odd. They were quite isolated from others for about 40,000 years or so.

If one is of African descent, one is adapted to the hot sun; hence, the dark skin color. Within African peoples, there are VAST differences between ethnic groups, and between regions. There are probably more differences amongst different African peoples than there are amongst different European and Asian peoples.

The problem with that summary is that it's too complex for everyday political discussions. They're not about debating rationally, but about showing allegiance to a predefined ideological tribe and then defending it to the death. The more unreasonable you are in defending it, the more reliable you are. That's why anything more complex than "four legs good, two legs bad" is bound to achieve nothing but to offend someone.