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Is race real or is it just a human invention?

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LKL
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18 Aug 2012, 7:08 pm

wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
^in what environment?


In the environment they lived in

"they" being whom?



wogaboo
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18 Aug 2012, 7:13 pm

LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
^in what environment?


In the environment they lived in

"they" being whom?


They being the life forms that are being classified



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18 Aug 2012, 7:14 pm

Oodain wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
The only selection bias is that they should select the DNA that matters most, based on objective criteria.

'DNA that matters most...'
for what? there is DNA that is highly conserved for every single eukaryotic organism on the planet, and there is DNA that varies from one person to the next; some of it controls outward appearance, some of it controls brain characteristics, and some of it likely influences personality, but we don't know much about that yet. What aspects do you consider most important for 'race,' the shape of the skull? The phylogeny? The brain? All of these things could be found with some degree of objectivity (phylogeny is what current anthropology is based on), depending on what the researchers found most important.


Mattered most for genetic fitness


and we are getting even vaguer,

in the sense of modern man there is very few variables we even have a chance of understanding today, much less make even a dodgy guess at what constitutes genetic fitness in that context.


actually and I may be going out on a limb here but natural section is a system for finding which genes are most important for genetic fitness. Unfortunately they would be the genes that are the most conservative. Sonic Hedgehog, NEK1 thing that if they where messed up you would be messed up.


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wogaboo
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18 Aug 2012, 7:24 pm

Oodain wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
The only selection bias is that they should select the DNA that matters most, based on objective criteria.

'DNA that matters most...'
for what? there is DNA that is highly conserved for every single eukaryotic organism on the planet, and there is DNA that varies from one person to the next; some of it controls outward appearance, some of it controls brain characteristics, and some of it likely influences personality, but we don't know much about that yet. What aspects do you consider most important for 'race,' the shape of the skull? The phylogeny? The brain? All of these things could be found with some degree of objectivity (phylogeny is what current anthropology is based on), depending on what the researchers found most important.


Mattered most for genetic fitness




and we are getting even vaguer,

in the sense of modern man there is very few variables we even have a chance of understanding today, much less make even a dodgy guess at what constitutes genetic fitness in that context.


Then how do scientists identify relatively neutral alleles (those ignored by natural selection) in modern humans? Skim genetic distance studies of race (sforza) and you'll see they calculate genetic distance based on neutral alleles.

If they can identify alleles that have been ignored by natural selection, why can't they do the opposite?



LKL
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18 Aug 2012, 8:21 pm

wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
^in what environment?


In the environment they lived in

"they" being whom?


They being the life forms that are being classified

Classification and determination of fitness are two differnt branches of genetics, which look at very different questions. If you're looking at what makes humans 'fit' overall, as a global population, then you're not going to be looking at any of the alleles or epiegenetic traits that separate one group of humans from another, by definition. If you do want to look at different populations of humans, then you have to look at how they are adapted to their individual environments. In either case, you aren't going to be looking at how different populations are related to each other, because that's a different question.



LKL
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18 Aug 2012, 8:23 pm

wogaboo wrote:
Oodain wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
The only selection bias is that they should select the DNA that matters most, based on objective criteria.

'DNA that matters most...'
for what? there is DNA that is highly conserved for every single eukaryotic organism on the planet, and there is DNA that varies from one person to the next; some of it controls outward appearance, some of it controls brain characteristics, and some of it likely influences personality, but we don't know much about that yet. What aspects do you consider most important for 'race,' the shape of the skull? The phylogeny? The brain? All of these things could be found with some degree of objectivity (phylogeny is what current anthropology is based on), depending on what the researchers found most important.


Mattered most for genetic fitness





and we are getting even vaguer,

in the sense of modern man there is very few variables we even have a chance of understanding today, much less make even a dodgy guess at what constitutes genetic fitness in that context.


Then how do scientists identify relatively neutral alleles (those ignored by natural selection) in modern humans? Skim genetic distance studies of race (sforza) and you'll see they calculate genetic distance based on neutral alleles.

If they can identify alleles that have been ignored by natural selection, why can't they do the opposite?

Neutral alleles are those which are not affected by natural seledtion (ie, they have nothing to do with 'fitness') and which increase or decrease by drift as populations become geographically isolated. Non-neutral alleles are affected by natural selection - for example, the type and copy number of genes controlling skin color - but what is 'fit' in one place is unfit in another. What is best in Ireland is not the best on the NIger delta; in addition, many of the genes that are heavily influenced by natural selection (for example, copy number of genes controlling skin color) are relatively rapid in their evolution either up or down (ie, a population can become more or less melanistic quite rapidly, almost regardless of the degree of melanism of the ancestral population).



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18 Aug 2012, 9:44 pm

LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
Oodain wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
The only selection bias is that they should select the DNA that matters most, based on objective criteria.

'DNA that matters most...'
for what? there is DNA that is highly conserved for every single eukaryotic organism on the planet, and there is DNA that varies from one person to the next; some of it controls outward appearance, some of it controls brain characteristics, and some of it likely influences personality, but we don't know much about that yet. What aspects do you consider most important for 'race,' the shape of the skull? The phylogeny? The brain? All of these things could be found with some degree of objectivity (phylogeny is what current anthropology is based on), depending on what the researchers found most important.


Mattered most for genetic fitness


and we are getting even vaguer,

in the sense of modern man there is very few variables we even have a chance of understanding today, much less make even a dodgy guess at what constitutes genetic fitness in that context.


Then how do scientists identify relatively neutral alleles (those ignored by natural selection) in modern humans? Skim genetic distance studies of race (sforza) and you'll see they calculate genetic distance based on neutral alleles.


If they can identify alleles that have been ignored by natural selection, why can't they do the opposite?

Neutral alleles are those which are not affected by natural seledtion (ie, they have nothing to do with 'fitness') and which increase or decrease by drift as populations become geographically isolated. Non-neutral alleles are affected by natural selection - for example, the type and copy number of genes controlling skin color - but what is 'fit' in one place is unfit in another. What is best in Ireland is not the best on the NIger delta; in addition, many of the genes that are heavily influenced by natural selection (for example, copy number of genes controlling skin color) are relatively rapid in their evolution either up or down (ie, a population can become more or less melanistic quite rapidly, almost regardless of the degree of melanism of the ancestral population).



So all I am saying is that if scientists calculated genetic distance between populations based on non-neutral alleles, we might get genetic confirmation of the 3 race theory.



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19 Aug 2012, 12:12 am

wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
Oodain wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
The only selection bias is that they should select the DNA that matters most, based on objective criteria.

'DNA that matters most...'
for what? there is DNA that is highly conserved for every single eukaryotic organism on the planet, and there is DNA that varies from one person to the next; some of it controls outward appearance, some of it controls brain characteristics, and some of it likely influences personality, but we don't know much about that yet. What aspects do you consider most important for 'race,' the shape of the skull? The phylogeny? The brain? All of these things could be found with some degree of objectivity (phylogeny is what current anthropology is based on), depending on what the researchers found most important.


Mattered most for genetic fitness


and we are getting even vaguer,

in the sense of modern man there is very few variables we even have a chance of understanding today, much less make even a dodgy guess at what constitutes genetic fitness in that context.


Then how do scientists identify relatively neutral alleles (those ignored by natural selection) in modern humans? Skim genetic distance studies of race (sforza) and you'll see they calculate genetic distance based on neutral alleles.


If they can identify alleles that have been ignored by natural selection, why can't they do the opposite?

Neutral alleles are those which are not affected by natural seledtion (ie, they have nothing to do with 'fitness') and which increase or decrease by drift as populations become geographically isolated. Non-neutral alleles are affected by natural selection - for example, the type and copy number of genes controlling skin color - but what is 'fit' in one place is unfit in another. What is best in Ireland is not the best on the NIger delta; in addition, many of the genes that are heavily influenced by natural selection (for example, copy number of genes controlling skin color) are relatively rapid in their evolution either up or down (ie, a population can become more or less melanistic quite rapidly, almost regardless of the degree of melanism of the ancestral population).



So all I am saying is that if scientists calculated genetic distance between populations based on non-neutral alleles, we might get genetic confirmation of the 3 race theory.

If we are deliberately looking for the things that make one group of humans different from another, we're going to find a lot more than three groups of humans.
Wogaboo, your flailing for a study paradigm that will force the data to fit your presuppositions is unscientific. The data we have so far strongly supports the out-of-Africa theory; if you look hard enough, starting with, 'how can we look at the DNA so that we find evidence to support the 3 races theory,' you might eventually find some evidence which, when you ignore everything else, would somewhat support the 3 races theory. However, it would never be published and is basically the scientific equivalent of turn-of-the-century phrenologists asking, what is the evidence that proves that white men are the smartest, sanest, most compassionate, most reasonable, most wonderful people on the planet?



wogaboo
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19 Aug 2012, 7:40 am

LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
Oodain wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
LKL wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
The only selection bias is that they should select the DNA that matters most, based on objective criteria.

'DNA that matters most...'
for what? there is DNA that is highly conserved for every single eukaryotic organism on the planet, and there is DNA that varies from one person to the next; some of it controls outward appearance, some of it controls brain characteristics, and some of it likely influences personality, but we don't know much about that yet. What aspects do you consider most important for 'race,' the shape of the skull? The phylogeny? The brain? All of these things could be found with some degree of objectivity (phylogeny is what current anthropology is based on), depending on what the researchers found most important.


Mattered most for genetic fitness




and we are getting even vaguer,

in the sense of modern man there is very few variables we even have a chance of understanding today, much less make even a dodgy guess at what constitutes genetic fitness in that context.


Then how do scientists identify relatively neutral alleles (those ignored by natural selection) in modern humans? Skim genetic distance studies of race (sforza) and you'll see they calculate genetic distance based on neutral alleles.

If they can identify alleles that have been ignored by natural selection, why can't they do the opposite?

Neutral alleles are those which are not affected by natural seledtion (ie, they have nothing to do with 'fitness') and which increase or decrease by drift as populations become geographically isolated. Non-neutral alleles are affected by natural selection - for example, the type and copy number of genes controlling skin color - but what is 'fit' in one place is unfit in another. What is best in Ireland is not the best on the NIger delta; in addition, many of the genes that are heavily influenced by natural selection (for example, copy number of genes controlling skin color) are relatively rapid in their evolution either up or down (ie, a population can become more or less melanistic quite rapidly, almost regardless of the degree of melanism of the ancestral population).


So all I am saying is that if scientists calculated genetic distance between populations based on non-neutral alleles, we might get genetic confirmation of the 3 race theory.



If we are deliberately looking for the things that make one group of humans different from another, we're going to find a lot more than three groups of humans.
Wogaboo, your flailing for a study paradigm that will force the data to fit your presuppositions is unscientific. The data we have so far strongly supports the out-of-Africa theory; if you look hard enough, starting with, 'how can we look at the DNA so that we find evidence to support the 3 races theory,' you might eventually find some evidence which, when you ignore everything else, would somewhat support the 3 races theory. However, it would never be published and is basically the scientific equivalent of turn-of-the-century phrenologists asking, what is the evidence that proves that white men are the smartest, sanest, most compassionate, most reasonable, most wonderful people on the planet?



I strongly support the out of Africa theory too. But this is not about the out of Africa theory; I am proposing a fundamentally different way of studying genetic distance between populations. The current methods use neutral alleles because scientistists prefer to classify humans by cladistics, which has the advantage of telling us how and when populations diverged.

I am advocating that scientists instead classify by phenetics and further proposing that non-neutral alleles would be useful for doing so.

Put simply, scientists currently measure genetic distance as a function of time since divergence from a common ancestor. A more meaningful measure of genetic distance would be the amount of evolution that took place in that time. So if some humans left Africa 60,000 years ago, but genetically preserved their African ancestry outside Africa, they should be considered more African than another group of people who left Africa only 10,000 years ago, but evolved into a cold climate genotype in that time.



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19 Aug 2012, 7:58 am

wogaboo wrote:
I strongly support the out of Africa theory too. But this is not about the out of Africa theory; I am proposing a fundamentally different way of studying genetic distance between populations. The current methods use neutral alleles because scientistists prefer to classify humans by cladistics, which has the advantage of telling us how and when populations diverged.

I am advocating that scientists instead classify by phenetics and further proposing that non-neutral alleles would be useful for doing so.

Put simply, scientists currently measure genetic distance as a function of time since divergence from a common ancestor. A more meaningful measure of genetic distance would be the amount of evolution that took place in that time. So if some humans left Africa 60,000 years ago, but genetically preserved their African ancestry outside Africa, they should be considered more African than another group of people who left Africa only 10,000 years ago, but evolved into a cold climate genotype in that time.


So you can find out who is the most evolved?
Adaptation did not somehow stop in Africa .5 million years ago or even .25 mya.
Africa's climate, flora and fauna were not the same across the life of the species.
Being the most "African" is not equivalent to being the most conservative genetically.
In fact the genetic diversity of Africa implies the opposite to be true.
Even when only taking into account only "functional" DNA.


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We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots??

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19 Aug 2012, 9:45 am

While I'm somewhat interested in the history of our species, I don't think I'm interested in examining it so closely that what we learn borders on discovering a system of eugenics. I think I'd rather appreciate all of us on the basis of how Nature made us. Not only should we not play God, our track record shows we're deplorable at it.



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19 Aug 2012, 10:37 am

wogaboo wrote:


I strongly support the out of Africa theory too. But this is not about the out of Africa theory; I am proposing a fundamentally different way of studying genetic distance between populations. The current methods use neutral alleles because scientistists prefer to classify humans by cladistics, which has the advantage of telling us how and when populations diverged.

I am advocating that scientists instead classify by phenetics and further proposing that non-neutral alleles would be useful for doing so.

Put simply, scientists currently measure genetic distance as a function of time since divergence from a common ancestor. A more meaningful measure of genetic distance would be the amount of evolution that took place in that time. So if some humans left Africa 60,000 years ago, but genetically preserved their African ancestry outside Africa, they should be considered more African than another group of people who left Africa only 10,000 years ago, but evolved into a cold climate genotype in that time.


there is a reason no one uses phenetics in this day and age, because the very axiom it was based on is as good as non existent(at least in the context of phenetics)

the genotypes you talk about are arbitrary at best, not to say that we dont have genotypes today but they are centered around relatively few genes and as such there are people with 2 or even 3 genotypes, all of this is used on a daily basis in medicine, tailor made medicines function after that principle as well.


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19 Aug 2012, 11:35 am

JakobVirgil wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
I strongly support the out of Africa theory too. But this is not about the out of Africa theory; I am proposing a fundamentally different way of studying genetic distance between populations. The current methods use neutral alleles because scientistists prefer to classify humans by cladistics, which has the advantage of telling us how and when populations diverged.


I am advocating that scientists instead classify by phenetics and further proposing that non-neutral alleles would be useful for doing so.



Put simply, scientists currently measure genetic distance as a function of time since divergence from a common ancestor. A more meaningful measure of genetic distance would be the amount of evolution that took place in that time. So if some humans left Africa 60,000 years ago, but genetically preserved their African ancestry outside Africa, they should be considered more African than another group of people who left Africa only 10,000 years ago, but evolved into a cold climate genotype in that time.



So you can find out who is the most evolved?
Adaptation did not somehow stop in Africa .5 million years ago or even .25 mya.
Africa's climate, flora and fauna were not the same across the life of the species.
Being the most "African" is not equivalent to being the most conservative genetically.
In fact the genetic diversity of Africa implies the opposite to be true.
Even when only taking into account only "functional" DNA.



I suspect if someone looked only at "functional" DNA or non-neutral DNA, they would find far more genetic diversity outside of sun-saharan Africa than within it



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19 Aug 2012, 12:42 pm

Oodain wrote:
wogaboo wrote:


I strongly support the out of Africa theory too. But this is not about the out of Africa theory; I am proposing a fundamentally different way of studying genetic distance between populations. The current methods use neutral alleles because scientistists prefer to classify humans by cladistics, which has the advantage of telling us how and when populations diverged.

I am advocating that scientists instead classify by phenetics and further proposing that non-neutral alleles would be useful for doing so.




Put simply, scientists currently measure genetic distance as a function of time since divergence from a common ancestor. A more meaningful measure of genetic distance would be the amount of evolution that took place in that time. So if some humans left Africa 60,000 years ago, but genetically preserved their African ancestry outside Africa, they should be considered more African than another group of people who left Africa only 10,000 years ago, but evolved into a cold climate genotype in that time.


there is a reason no one uses phenetics in this day and age, because the very axiom it was based on is as good as non existent(at least in the context of phenetics)


the genotypes you talk about are arbitrary at best, not to say that we dont have genotypes today but they are centered around relatively few genes and as such there are people with 2 or even 3 genotypes, all of this is used on a daily basis in medicine, tailor made medicines function after that principle as well.



Genotypes can be arbitrary but a good scientist can make them objective. Simply take the samples of non-neutral alleles taken from humans all over the world; then perform a principal component analysis to determine the number of races and to what degree each population loads on each race. This is an entirely done by computer and requires no arbitrary decisions on anyone's part



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19 Aug 2012, 1:14 pm

genotypes in that context has very little to do with the broader genotype,
they are sub sections of genetic code that has practical relevance in one form or the other, allergies fall into this category, you have ample differences even between brothers.
how that can translate into anything like a 3 race theory is beyond me, at least without extensive research into the full function of DNA, coding and non, leaving us right back where we started.


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19 Aug 2012, 1:24 pm

wogaboo wrote:
I suspect if someone looked only at "functional" DNA or non-neutral DNA, they would find far more genetic diversity outside of sun-saharan Africa than within it

If you're interested in phenetics rather than cladistics, why do you give a damn about DNA anyway?

Edit: it's pretty clear that you're just looking for some version of evidence that will fit your preconceived conclusion. You are not interested in science; you are interested in constructing a scientific-looking wardrobe out of whole cloth to fit the notion you already have.